Skokomish Tribe Collects Oyster Spat from Hood Canal
Skokomish Tribe shellfish technician William Williams leans over the side of a boat and drops a cement block bristling with Pacific oyster shells into the water near the Skokomish tidelands.…
Tribal Students Learn About The Simple Life of Oysters
Port Gamble S’Klallam and Suquamish tribal students recently learned how easy it is to grow their own shellfish, just like a garden. Viviane Barry, a tribal shellfish biologist, showed students from…
Tribes Work To Restore Native Olympia Oysters
SKOKOMISH (June 19, 2003) — Sunk in mud and nearly hip-deep in water, Eric Sparkman pulls a large oyster shell from a saltwater pond and begins to take measurements. It’s not the dimensions of the shell Sparkman is looking to note, it’s the size of what’s living on the shell he’s after.
“There’s several Olympia oysters living on this one, five or six, and they’re all pretty small,” said Sparkman, shellfish biologist for the Skokomish Tribe. “But they are alive and they are slowly growing, and that’s really what counts.”