In Willapa Bay, there is a long relationship between the oysters that grow there and the residents who harvest them. Oysters provided an abundant food source for the first inhabitants of the area, the native Americans. The tradition of shellfish harvesting continued with the earliest settlers in the region, while the methods for harvesting evolved.

Oysterville, a small town on the Long Beach peninsula, was the first city incorporated in the region in 1852, and became the centre of the oyster industry. The first oysters harvested from Willapa Bay were the native Washington oyster, Ostrea lurida, also known as the Olympia oyster. The oyster trade continued into 1870 until the numbers of oysters began to diminish due to harvesting pressure. The decline of the Olympia oyster led people to cultivate oysters where they did not occur naturally, and the first oyster farms appeared in Willapa Bay in the late 1800s. The population of Olympia oysters continued to decline until 1891 when the State passed legislation that allowed the oyster growers to purchase areas in which they were farming. The areas they staked out formed the basis of the private tidelands that exist today, and were the start of the long history of private stewardship in Willapa Bay.

Japanese entrepreneurs first brought the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, to Washington at the turn of the century. Willapa oystermen did not begin importing Pacific seed until 1928. Pacific oysters quickly adapted to the Willapa environment because of their high tolerance for tidal exposure and cooler waters. Legal title gave oyster growers the impetus for private stewardship and resource enhancement, and encouraged them to fight for clean water for their oysters.

The oyster industry is an ideal model of a business that both utilizes and protects the Willapa Bay environment. The oystermen depend on clean water and have been encouraged to nurture and defend their particular piece of property out of self-interest, which also benefits the local ecosystem. Oyster growers have had a profound effect on Willapa Bay and elsewhere in Washington because they own the tidelands their oysters are cultivated on. Ownership ties oysters to a particular spot and gives the growers a vested interest in protecting the local environment since their livelihood depends on it. The extent of tidal ownership in Willapa Bay is unique and it explains why oyster growers have been successfully propagating oysters and protecting the health and well being of Washington’s coastal waters for so long.

~Based on the case study (Oysters and Willapa Bay) by Michael De Alessi. Comparative Enterprise Institute. March 1, 1996.

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Oysters; A celebration of 150 years of Stewardship on Willapa Bay published by the Chinook Observer Nov. 2001