The Great Shellfish Bay

H.L. Mencken called the Chesapeake Bay the "great protein factory." And that it was, for close to two centuries, as watermen harvested oysters, clams, crabs, and striped bass from its wild waters. But in the past several decades, aquaculture for hard clams and oysters has taken off in both Maryland and Virginia. We look at some points of interest along the way.

Drag your mouse over the markers on the map to for information about these locations:

1. Choptank River
   The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Horn Point Hatchery is helping to restore oyster populations, both for ecological and economic reasons. It is near a commercial oyster farm, Marinetics, that uses floating cages to grow oysters.
2. Delaware Inland Bays
   Maryland Extension specialist Don Webster is among those helping to start an oyster leasing program in these coastal bays — pushback from waterfront homeowners has been one of the biggest obstacles to a robust program.
3. Nanticoke, Maryland
   While most of Maryland remained in the wild fishery and oyster leases were hard to obtain from the 1900s until 2010, especially on the Eastern Shore, the Nanticoke River had a leasing tradition — thanks in large part to the H.B. Kennerly Oyster Co., that was based there. Kennerly closed in 2005, but several oyster farmers have taken up residence in the river.
4. St. Mary's area, Maryland
   (Hollywood, Ridge, Breton Bay)
   A cluster of oyster farms have been set up in Southern Maryland, along the Potomac and St. Mary's rivers as well as the open Chesapeake.
5. Rappahannock, Virginia
   A robust oyster aquaculture industry has set up shop in Virginia's Northern Neck. There are enough farms and restaurants here that the state set up an oyster trail for tasting.
6. Cheriton, Virginia
   In the early 1980s, diseases had killed so many oysters that C. Chadwick Ballard decided to try something else: clams. He began planting beds on Cherrystone Creek, and the clams became famous all over the world. Other lease-holders followed, and Virginia's Eastern Shore became the capital of the state's hard clam industry, which is now the largest in the country. Some, like Ballard's company, have now returned to their roots, growing oysters again.

Note: Locations on this map are approximate.

Sources: 1. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; 2. Don Webster, Aquaculture Regional Specialist; 3. Washington Post; 4. Chesapeake Bay Journal; 5. Chesapeake Bay Journal; 6. Baltimore Sun