Critical Review: A Historical Perspective on the National Research Counci's Report 'Shellfish Mariculture in Drakes Estero'

Babalis, Timothy

Brief Description: A review of the history used to support several conclusions made by the National Research Council in their report, Shellfish Mariculture in Drakes Estero. Full Description: The National Research Council (NRC) created the report, “Shellfish in Drakes Estero” in which they used history to support conclusions. This review is a brief critical analysis of the history of west coast mariculture used to evaluate the legitimacy of the claims made by the NRC report. The NRC was contracted by the National Park Service in April 2008 to perform an evaluation of the science relating to the impact of oyster mariculture on the natural environment in Drakes Estero. An outside company was contracted for the purpose of obtaining a non-biased evaluation in order to alleviate a conflict between interested parties. There is one point from the NRC report that is addressed in this review where the NRC findings and the National Park Service differ and that is the assumption that native Olympia oysters (Ostrea lurida) once represented a keystone component of Drakes Estero before over-harvesting eliminated the population from the area in the late nineteenth-century. This is in contrast to the National Park Service’s claim that there is no evidence of any oyster species making up a significant component of the prehistoric natural environment. The implication of the claim made by the NRC, that Olympia oysters were once abundant in Drakes Estero, is that the present mariculture industry there is helping restore the natural environment by reintroducing the oysters. In this review it is found that the NRC report does not properly present the full natural history of mariculture in Drakes Estero, and instead supports the authors’ own presupposition.