Maryland's Chesapeake Bay waters afford an almost perfect environment for the growing of oysters.¹ Vast expanses of bottom are covered with waters of hospitable temperatures and salinities. These sheltered waters afford relative freedom from predators and diseases that have substantially impaired oyster production in Long Island Sound, Delaware Bay, and Virginia waters.

Notwithstanding these natural advantages, Maryland's oyster production has suffered a dramatic decline. In 1880, the Maryland fishery produced 71.9 million oyters; in 1962, it produced 8.1 million. The decline is a product of various causes: pollution has reduced the available oxygen; bottom dredging and shoreline construction has resulted in silted beds; fertilizers and municipal wastes have nourished plant growth that displaces the food of oysters; herbicides and pesticides have poisoned both animal and plant life. But the main cause of decline has been the operations of the most sophisticated of predators—the oysterman. Oysters have been harvested to such an extent that the reproductive capacity of the fishery has been greatly diminished; shells have been removed in such great numbers that the oyster beds have been smothered by encroaching silt.