Tribe Aims to Bring Oyster Out of Shell

The mud sucks at Brian Allen’s hip boots as he walks across the beach searching for the elusive Olympia oyster.

The tiny, tasty oyster once covered south Puget Sound beaches like a white blanket, and played a starring role in local Indian tribes’ diet and economy.

But 20th century pollution drove the Olympias to the brink of extinction.

Now the Squaxin Island Tribe is working to restore Olympias to their rightful dominance, both on the beaches and on their dinner tables.

Allen, a tribal shellfish biologist, liked what he saw one morning this summer on the eastern shore of Squaxin Island.

“They’re all over the place. This is dynamite,” he said.

The Olympia oysters the tribe planted two years ago have spawned a successful wild oyster bed. But why the fragile, fickle Olympias thrive on one beach and wither on another remains a mystery.

For biologists, it’s a scientific puzzle. For tribal members, saving the Olympia oysters may be the key to preserving an important part of their culture.

Salmon are the iconic animal for Puget Sound tribes. Tribes still celebrate the big yearly runs of salmon from the ocean to the rivers with ceremonies and feasts. But oysters were the tribes’ daily bread.

“It was a constant food source for the tribes,” said Jim Peters, natural resources director for the Squaxin Island Tribe. They ate Olympias nearly every day -- raw, steamed in fire pits on the beach, or dried and smoked. Families would string the oysters together and hang them in their rafters to dry, so garlands of Olympia oysters decorated every Squaxin Islander’s home.

Olympias are unlike any other oyster. They’re small, with shells about the size of a silver dollar and oysters about the size of a quarter. Legend has it that early civic boosters plied Washington leaders with the tasty native oysters to persuade them to put the capital in Olympia. (It worked.) Their delicate and complex flavor has been described as mild, salty-sweet, like fresh-cut grass, creamy, nutty and metallic.

To Squaxin Island tribal members old enough to remember when Olympia oysters were plentiful, they simply taste like home.

“I like them fresh off the beach,” Peters said. “I know I can taste the difference between a Mud Bay oyster and one from somewhere else. They’re tastier.”

Squaxin Islanders also used Olympia oysters as currency in trade with other tribes, which is why piles of oyster shells have been found at ancient tribal sites hundreds of miles inland.

Trouble for the oysters began soon after white settlers arrived in the Pacific Northwest. The minutes of a tribal council meeting in the mid-1860s describe tribal shellfish growers complaining that pollution from timber mills was killing off their oyster beds, according to Charlene Krise, executive director of the Squaxin Island Museum. By the 1940s the Olympia oyster industry was wiped out. A few commercial growers kept a limited supply alive.

There’s enough blame to go around for the wild Olympias’ decline: timber mills, farms, rapid population growth, invasive species, over-harvesting. As Olympias died off, Pacific oysters were introduced to Puget Sound and replaced them as the dominant oyster. Hardier and easier to grow, what they lacked in complex flavors they made up for in size.

Now Olympias are getting a second chance. Puget Sound water has gotten cleaner thanks to tougher pollution laws and better conservation. The Squaxin Island Tribe started working on Olympia restoration about 15 years ago, Peters said.

In 2002 and 2003, with help from the nonprofit Puget Sound Restoration Fund, they planted about 155,000 oyster seeds on three Squaxin Island beaches. Over the last year the oysters have made a comeback.

So, what are they doing right? That’s what Allen and other tribal biologists hope to learn. Armed with calipers and a clipboard on the beach and a microscope back at the lab, Allen studies the wild-growing Olympias for answers.

“What’s different about this beach?” he wonders aloud as he pulls his boat up to the oyster-strewn shore. Where do Olympia oysters naturally like to grow and what are the best conditions? Why do the larva latch onto certain materials and not others? How do today’s Olympia oysters differ from the ones Peters’ ancestors knew?

“Not only am I asking questions, I’m getting more questions as I go along,” Allen said.

Some clues are coming from an archeological site on Eld Inlet, at the waterfront property of former Secretary of State Ralph Munro. There, scientists have found a deposit of oyster shells, called a “midden,” that is between 500 and 1,000 years old. Tribal biologist Ian Childs said they had discovered that while modern Olympias were round, the old shells grew in a teardrop shape, probably because they were more crowded.

What they really want to do is analyze the DNA of the old Olympia shells to learn about the world of the native Puget Sound oyster. The only problem, Childs said, is “lots of shells and no money.”

The Squaxin Island Tribe is one of several tribes, government agencies, businesses and conservation groups working to bring back the Olympia oyster. Since 1999, the Puget Sound Restoration Fund has planted nearly 5 million oyster seeds around Puget Sound and the Hood Canal. Major funding for the roughly $500,000 project has come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Squaxin Island tribal members look forward to the day when Olympia oysters will once again be an everyday meal instead of a rare treat.

Leo Henry, 56, a retired logger, remembers big family suppers on the beach, where dozens of relatives and friends would gather to steam oysters and clams.

“They were real plentiful, and now they’re slowly making their way back,” Henry said. “The Olympia oysters are going to come back.”

He hopes to revive the family tradition, which petered out after his parents died. When he does, Henry said, he hopes to celebrate with Olympia oysters.