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Oysters not reproducing naturally
Welcome to ocean acidification... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ysters22m.html Excerpt: After 34 years rearing shellfish in Willapa Bay, Dave Nisbet was in a bind: Nature had stopped providing. Oysters were no longer reproducing naturally on the Washington Coast. Oyster larvae were even dying in nearby hatcheries, which use seawater to raise baby shellfish that get sold as starter seed to companies like Nisbet's Goose Point Oysters. But when, in 2009, Nisbet heard oceanographers identify the likely culprit — increasingly corrosive ocean water, a byproduct of the same greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming — the oysterman did the unthinkable. Nisbet took out a loan and spent three years testing and building a new hatchery that opened recently. In Hawaii. Most of Washington's $100 million-a-year oyster industry has been whipsawed in recent years by ecological problems. But Nisbet's oyster company appears to be one of the first businesses in the Northwest — perhaps anywhere — to shift part of its business to a new region in response to ocean acidification. |
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