About Oyster Sanctuaries Like Herring Bay
The new community-sponsored project being coordinated by AHB aims to restore oyster habitat on a 3-acre site in the Herring Bay Oyster Sanctuary. Here is some general background on why Maryland has sanctuaries and how they are managed.
Where is the Herring Bay Sanctuary?
Herring Bay is located on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, about 20 miles south of Annapolis, Maryland, as shown on this map. The Herring Bay Sanctuary is in the Mid-Bay region and extends from an area north of the town of Deale to an area near Chesapeake Beach in Calvert County.
How big is the Herring Bay Oyster Sanctuary?
The boundaries of sanctuaries include areas with historic oyster bars and areas connected to those bars that do not have oysters. In the case of Herring Bay, the sanctuary boundary spans a total of about 16,792 acres, of which 7,981 acres, or 48 percent of the total, is historic oyster bottom. Measured by size, it is the third largest sanctuary in Maryland. Herring Bay’s eight historic oyster bars were charted by the Yates Oyster Survey (1906-2012, plus amendments). DNR has published a map showing the boundaries of the Herring Bay Oyster Sanctuary and its Yates bars.
Who manages oyster activities in the Chesapeake Bay?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has regulatory jurisdiction over all activities in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The USACE has delegated most—but not all—responsibility for managing oyster-related activities in Maryland waters to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
What are the goals of oyster management in Maryland?
In 2010, DNR adopted an oyster management plan aimed at balancing three priorities: expanding oyster habitat in protected “sanctuaries,” creating opportunities for aquaculture, and maintaining the public fishery (areas harvested by watermen). As part of that management plan, Maryland delineated 51 oyster sanctuaries, including Herring Bay.
What are the purposes of oyster sanctuaries?
Sanctuaries were established to achieve multiple objectives, including: protecting the Bay’s most productive oyster grounds; facilitating natural resistance to disease; providing ecological functions that cannot be obtained on oyster bars that are harvested; providing a reservoir of reproductive capacity; having oyster populations in waters with varied salinity and geographic range; and increasing Maryland’s ability to protect these priority areas from poaching. DNR has focused restoration efforts on the historical oyster bars identified in the Yates survey.
Can oysters be harvested in sanctuaries?
Harvesting is permanently prohibited on historical oyster bars in Maryland’s oyster sanctuaries. Other areas within the sanctuary boundaries may be leased for aquaculture harvesting operations that meet certain conditions:
The aquaculture lease is located more than 150 feet from Yates bars,
The aquaculture operation is approved by DNR, and
The total acreage leased for aquaculture does not exceed 10 percent of the acreage in the sanctuary.
Are any aquaculture leases being harvested today in the Herring Bay Sanctuary?
There currently is one active aquaculture operation in the Herring Bay Sanctuary. It is located at the southern end of the sanctuary, in Calvert County waters.
How does DNR select sanctuaries for oyster restoration?
DNR’s oyster restoration priorities are guided by the Chesapeake Watershed Agreement adopted in 2014 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the six states and the District of Columbia that are within the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed. That agreement called for the restoration of oyster habitats and populations in 10 tributaries by 2025, as well as a commitment to ensure their protection. The five tributaries selected by Maryland for restoration are located in the Harris Creek, Little Choptank, Tred Avon, Upper St. Mary’s, and Manonkin sanctuaries. (The remaining tributaries are in Virginia waters). As the 10-year deadline approaches, DNR is celebrating “impressive signs of recovery, with considerable reproduction and the establishment of dense, vertical oyster reef structure.”
Building on that success, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation recently recommended the Bay jurisdictions target 20 more tributaries for large-scale restoration by 2035, Additional information about CBF’s findings and recommendations can be found in their 2024 report, Hope on the Half Shell.
In addition to its work on the five priority tributaries, DNR supports small-scale sanctuary restoration through its Marylanders Grow Oysters Program and in coordination with privately funded Build-A-Reef programs. That support included planting 25 million juvenile oysters in the Herring Bay Sanctuary in 2023 and using some of the money received from the Evergreen Marine Corporation to plant another 60 million over 2024-2025.
How does DNR select sites in sanctuaries for oyster restoration?
Oyster restoration can only occur on sites approved by DNR. The exact location of restoration projects on a Yates bar is determined by DNR after review and analysis of various factors, including the physical conditions of the site, potential effects on maritime activities, and ecological considerations.