A message from CBOCS

Chesapeake Beach, MD (August 11, 2020): A message from John Bacon with the Chesapeake Beach Oyster Cultivation Society. 

Hello CBOCS Volunteers,

I hope that each of you and your families are healthy during this stressful time.

CBOCS News

• Oyster delivery this September will be limited due to the COVID-19 effect on the ability of personnel at the Horn Point Hatchery to hatch enough larvae for conversion to spat on shell.  The MGO program which we are a part of will be sending us oyster spat on September 11.  It is our intention to take some and fill 2 cages for Fishing Creek which we will put next to the oysterquarium. What is left over we will take directly to the Old Rock and Herring Bay reefs using a minimum number of mask wearing people. We will not be doing any counting of the spat.
• The 5th grade oyster field trips to Fishing Creek are suspended as 1^st semester classes in Calvert County will be virtual. We are going to supply a small number of spat on shell to the Calvert County Natural Resource personnel. They are going to make a video tape of what happens on the field trip for distribution to all the schools.
• The Old Rock Reef oysters are growing and very healthy.  We made a sample dredge recently and found that some of the older oysters were 6 inches in size.  They are also covered with barnacles. See attached pictures.  We recently received some reef balls from the Coastal Conversation Association and will be finishing our quota by depositing them on the Old Rock Reef.
• Chesapeake Beach now has it’s own oyster hatchery.  It is located in Abners boat yard. Recently Abner was in the Bay. This means that he does not have to rely on oyster spat from Horne or Piney Point. If you are interest in seeing this process happen send me an email. Abner plans to do a couple more seeding this year.
• CBOCS will resume normal activities and meetings as soon as possible.  In the meantime stay safe.

Thank you CBOCS volunteers for cleaning the Bay!

John Bacon