The Peninsula Daily News reported on the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee, of which the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is a member, restoring oyster habitat in Discovery Bay recently. The committee, tribe, WSU Beach Watchers and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife collaborated to start the process to revive the native Olympia oyster in the bay.

With local, state and federal permits in hand, the group used a boat and crew to move 8 cubic yards of bagged shell from a nearby staging area to the project area on the previous day’s high tide. 

Volunteers from the Marine Resource Committee and WSU Beach Watchers walked out at low tide Aug. 9 to thinly scatter Pacific oyster shells and two small plots of crushed shell on the Discovery Bay tideflats across the bay from the existing population, avoiding eelgrass as they worked, said (Cheryl Lowe, committee coordinator).

“Larvae from the existing oyster population should settle on the new shell next spring, and the population is expected to slowly expand from there,” Lowe said.

Taylor Shellfish, the Jamestown S’Klallam Natural Resources Department and Port Discovery Seafarms provided advice, donation of shell and use of boat, crew and staging facilities, she added.