Lessons from the West Coast resonate with East Coast shellfish hatchery owners, industry

by Kelsey Abbott

TILLAMOOK, OR – “You don’t need to be a PhD to recognize a problem,” says Mark Wiegardt, owner of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts Bay, OR.

“I’m not a scientist. I’m not a biologist. There’s a lot of things I’m not. But I know shellfish.”

And zero production is a problem.

As one of three major shellfish hatcheries on the West Coast, Whiskey Creek, which supplies 80% of the region’s shellfish growers with oyster seed, had never had a production problem. But for three to four months in 2007, Whiskey Creek didn’t produce any viable oyster larvae.

Read the rest and much, much more in Issue 2, 2011 of Fish Farming News.  Download now for immediate access and keep the .pdf for future reference.