Oysters Here Okay

December 18, 1997

Russell Drumm

So far, so good - that's the short-range prognosis of Gregg Rivara of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Service's marine program, speaking of oysters, at least those on the South Fork.

Oysters on the North Fork as well as those cultivated and harvested naturally on the North Shore of Long Island are suffering a severe blight caused by MSX and Dermo, two forms of microscopic parasites, single cell protozoans whose means of infecting the shellfish are not well understood.

Mr. Rivara said he didn't know for sure, but he thought the plague might have something to do with Long Island Sound. "After studying MSX (Haplosporidium nelsoni) for over 40 years, scientists still are not sure how it spreads from oyster to oyster."

Havoc UpIsland

"It could be there's a third animal, an alternate host, maybe a bird," Mr. Rivara said. It is known that the Dermo (short for Dermocystidium marinum) is passed from shellfish to shellfish.

Whatever the cause the tiny beasts have wreaked havoc UpIsland. The Frank M. Flower and Sons company of Oyster Bay, which grows oysters on its beds in Oyster Bay itself, lost a reported 60 percent of its crop last summer.

The parasites are not dangerous to humans, but consume oysters at an alarming rate. The hope is that disease resistant strains will eventually control the losses.

A Touch In The Peconic

So far, the East End of the South Fork has been spared. Mr. Rivara said he had not heard of any problems. In East Hampton, he said, many of the native oysters can be traced to Oyster Pond, Montauk, via a tradition of transplanting oysters from there into other town waters. The transplanting of oysters from farther away was not recommended, he said. In fact, it was illegal in some cases.

"Transplants have to be licensed through the state. If you wanted them from Delaware - probably not," he said of the state where the MSX plague first appeared in 1957.

"There was a little touch of Dermo in the Peconic," not surprising, Mr. Rivara said, because of its proximity to North Fork waters - "but not out east."