Volunteers Restore Native Olympia Oysters Across San Francisco Bay

SAN FRANCISCO & RICHMOND, Calif. — Across North America’s biologically richest estuary, a network of citizen scientists, marine biologists, and culinary partners is working to rebuild the native Olympia oyster population of San Francisco Bay—one recycled restaurant shell and low-tide quadrat survey at a time—according to a feature published Tuesday, November 3, by East Bay Express.

From 19th-Century Oyster Pirates to a 20-to-40-Volunteer Shell Recycling Network

Once a staple food source for the Ohlone people, native Olympia oysters were harvested to near-extinction during the California Gold Rush and 19th-century hydraulic mining, when commercial monopolies planted eastern oysters on bay mudflats and Figures like Jack London—known as the "Prince of the Oyster Pirates"—raided beds near the Oakland docks.

To restore native populations, environmentalist Linda Hunter founded the nonprofit Wild Oyster Project (wildoysters.org) in 2016. Executive Director Giulio Salerno noted that what began with Hunter personally driving to restaurants to collect shucked shells has expanded into a network of 20 to 40 volunteers who gather discarded shells from partnering Bay Area restaurants. Returned to the estuary, those shells provide hard substrate for young Olympia oysters to form reefs that reinforce shorelines, foster native eel grass, and filter particulate matter from the water.

7 A.M. COSMO Shoreline Surveys at Richmond’s Point Molate Beach Park

Beyond shell recycling, the nonprofit launched COSMO (Community Oyster Science Monitoring Opportunities) as a pilot program last year and expanded it this summer under marine scientist Jivan Khakee and program director Casey Harper. During a 7 a.m. low-tide survey at Richmond’s Point Molate Beach Park overlooking the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, 3 (three) volunteers—certified master naturalist Iam McFaul (a veteran of the Border BioBlitz across California, Arizona, and Texas), author and biology graduate Susan McCarthy, and a fellow participant—stepped across beds of Ulva canopy ("sea lettuce") and red algae.

Using a bright-orange rope transect and a rectangular PVC pipe quadrat grid, volunteers measured percent algae coverage and counted native oysters in each row up to 10 as an intern recorded the figures on a clipboard. "One oyster on its own is quite small; it doesn’t matter much as a single individual, but collectively working together they’re a keystone species of the whole environment," Harper said.

National Oyster Day Wine Pairing at Ghirardelli Square and Youth Marine Camps

To fund restoration and broaden public outreach, Harmony Niles—a project leader and niece of founder Linda Hunter—guided a National Oyster Day wine and oyster pairing on the 2nd (second) floor of Broad Street Oyster Company at Ghirardelli Square overlooking Alcatraz, where participants including Amy Hephner matched 3 (three) white wines with 3 (three) distinct oysters and deposited their shucked shells into a reef-recycling bucket. This summer, the Wild Oyster Project also hosted a shoreline camp for children as young as 5 years old to touch live Olympia oysters and learn estuarine stewardship.