WILMINGTON – The bays and sounds of North Carolina once yielded hundreds of thousands of bushels of oysters a year, before pollution, overfishing , disease and other factors caused their populations to decline.
Now a small group of scientists and growers is laying the groundwork to revive the industry by cultivating oysters in cages and bags. So far, oyster aquaculture has produced modest returns in North Carolina, accounting for less than 21 percent of a $2.9 million oyster industry.
But proponents look north to Virginia to show what’s possible. There, the state has invested heavily in developing strains of oysters that do well in aquaculture, and production from oyster growers has increased by more than 35 times since 2005.
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