Past and Present Restoration Activities

Oysters thrived in Herring Bay for thousands of years, as evidenced by the many large oyster “middens” found along its shorelines, dating back to at least the Middle-woodlands period (100-600 AD). As everyone knows, oyster populations today are a small fraction of their historic levels because of overfishing and disease. Thanks to restoration projects sponsored by citizens and DNR, oysters are making a comeback in Herring Bay, as can be seen in the snapshot of a recent project on the previous page.

Were oysters planted in Herring Bay before the sanctuary was created in 2010?

Before 2010, DNR routinely replenished shell and planted wild seed to support the commercial oyster fishery, dating back to at least the 1960s. From 1990 through 2010, 173.6 acres were planted with wild seed and 35.7 acres with dredged shell material. No spat-on-shell, also known as juvenile oysters, have been planted in Herring Bay for public harvest since 1990.


What restoration activities occurred in the sanctuary between 2010 and 2023?

Since it was established in 2010, the Herring Bay Sanctuary has benefited from small-scale restoration efforts by local communities and DNR.:

  • In 2011, the Chesapeake Beach Oyster Cultivation Society (CBOCS) launched a large-scale “oyster gardening” effort sponsored by the Town of Chesapeake Beach. CBOCS has planted about one million juvenile oysters since the project’s inception. CBOCS gets juvenile oysters at no cost through DNR’s “Maryland Grows Oysters” program.

  • From 2016-2017, DNR planted 19 million juvenile oysters on a 12-acre site in Herring Bay for the purpose of monitoring the oyster population for diseases. Because of that specialized purpose, the average density of that planting was lower than for restoration sites (less than 2 million juveniles per acre compared to 5 or 6 million per acre for restoration projects).

  • In 2019, the Advocates for Herring Bay (AHB) launched a collaborative effort to restore oysters on a quarter-acre site on a Yates bar in the sanctuary. By 2022, AHB had planted over one-million juvenile oysters on that reef thanks to support from the community and partnerships with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), CBOCS, and the Oyster Recovery Partnership. CBF reported on the AHB project in 2020.

  • In 2021, CBF planted 120,000 juvenile oysters on reef balls at a “Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative” (MARI) site in the Herring Bay Sanctuary.

  • In May 2023, DNR planted 25 million juvenile oysters on a 3.5-acre site on a Yates bar in the sanctuary.


What restoration activities are planned for 2024 and beyond?

  • In October 2023, AHB was given permission to restore oysters on a new 3-acre site on a Yates bar in the Sanctuary. This citizen-sponsored initiative has a goal of planting 10 million juvenile oysters by 2025 and completing the project—which will take a total of 15 to 18 million spat-on-shell—over the next few years.

  • In January 2024, DNR announced that it would plant about 60 million juvenile oysters in the Herring Bay Sanctuary over the 2024-2025 period. The first 8 million juveniles were planted in April 2024. This project is being funded by some of the money received from the Evergreen Marine Corporation as a result of the 2022 grounding of the M/V Ever Forward on an oyster bar in the upper Chesapeake Bay.