Save Drake's Bay Oyster Farm

One of our stops during our road trip was into Drake's Bay Oyster Farm. As you head out toward the lighthouse, not too far past Inverness, and before you hit all the cattle ranches, you will find the driveway on the left.

Drakes Bay Oysters are raised in the most pristine body of water quality of any growing area in the state of California. A deep-water upwelling just off the coast of Drakes Bay provides cool, nutrient rich water year-round to Drakes Estero and produces some of the finest oysters in the world.

Drakes Bay Oysters is the last cold packing cannery in California and their mission is to grow, harvest and deliver sound and sustainable agriculture with ecological responsibility and an attitude of stewardship for the land and sea.

Oysters have been farmed here for 100 years by agriculturalists, and possibly thousands of years by the Coastal Miwuks. Since the National Park Service has managed the area of Point Reyes, they have given special use leases to the families of various industries; several cattle ranches and the Drakes Bay Oyster Farm.

An oyster is an amazing little creature, a bivalve mollask to be precise. To grow some you need some oyster larvae. They are microscopic specks. At the farm, they place previously harvested shells into a warm bath of sea water and release the larvae into the vat. After a time, workers check the oyster jacuzzi to see if the larvae have taken. Then they lace the shells with the larvae onto wire "strings", place them on a rack in the bay and let them grow.

"Lacing"

"Racking"

 

"Prepping for the Bay"

 

Jorge here has been an oyster farmer on this ranch for 27 years. He showed us the vats and pointed out the tiny brown specks of larvae that had attached themselves to the shell. He said that once they go out to the ocean for a week, they grow to the size of a "seed". Then they are re-racked and allowed to grow in the bay for a year. Each seed grows its own shell.

Some of the shells are reused for another planting. Over $10,000 worth of shell is donated to the Native Oyster Restoration Project in the San Francisco Bay to create a reef onto which native oyster seed can attach. The farm has also donated shell to the Western Snowy Plover Recovery Project because they provide excellent camouflage for adults, eggs, and chicks, increasing plover nest density and nesting success.

Due to some shady politics, the National Park Service is attempting NOT to renew the lease for the Oyster Farm. They want to shut it down. They want the land to go back to its "natural state". But they are allowing the 6 dairies and 9 beef cattle ranches to remain.
 

 

My question is, when does something become A PART of the natural ecology? If you get rid of the farming in the bay that has been here for thousands of years, doesn't that have a detrimental effect on the habitat and wildlife that have become adapted to it being here? And when are we going to figure human beings into our equation about the enviornment? We are very present. Yes! We need to be more conscientious co-existers with our planet, but we have to be included as part of the "Natural Habitat".

 

This little oyster farm is a gem. The family that owns it will give you a personal tour and explain everything about how they run their small operation. The oyster farm is the second largest employer within Point Reyes National Seashore, employing 30 full time workers and providing housing for many of them. In an area that traditionally only offers farm employment opportunity to men on the dairy farms and beef ranches, the oyster farm employs both men and women. It is unlikely they would be able to stay if the oyster farm goes.

It would be a shame for the area and the palate to lose this jewel.

To learn more about the farm: Drake's Bay Family Farm

To learn more about the issues surrounding its fight against the Park Service: More Marin

To be the farms friend on Facebook: Drake's Bay Farm Facebook

To download the Original Bliss Artichoke and Oyster Soup Recipe: Recipe PDF

 

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

Comments

[phyllis Hoffman]

Very nice of you to print this on your blog and I throughly agree. The lose of the oyster farm would be a crime.

[Polly Tickner]

It is wrong of the Park Service to eliminate a part of the parks history! It is actually an historic archaeological site! The oyster farm is an important part of the settling of people out at Point Reyes, and should remain that. It is important for people to learn about the history of oyster farming at Point Reyes, and the Johnson's/Drakes Bay Oyster Farm is just the way to accomplish an understanding of how it has survived 100 years and why it should continue. The park service should rethink their attitude about this, and I do believe that the cattle and dairy industry does more ecological damage to the "pristine" area of Point Reyes!