The Nature Conservancy released the first-ever comprehensive global report on the state of shellfish at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington, DC. The report, which finds that 85 percent of oyster reefs have been lost worldwide, concludes that oyster reefs are the most severely impacted marine habitat on the planet.
In the majority of individual bays around the world, there has been a greater than 90 percent loss of oyster reef habitat. In some areas, the loss of oyster reef habitat exceeds 99 percent -- globally, 85 percent of oyster reefs have been completely lost.
Reefs are functionally extinct in many areas, particularly in North America, Australia and Europe, and no are no longer able to provide any of the ecosystem services that benefit people.
Most of the world’s remaining wild capture of oysters comes from only five regions on the east coast of North America, and in most of these regions, oyster reefs are in poor condition or worse.
The driving forces behind the decline of oyster reefs include destructive fishing practices, coastal over-development, and associated effects of upstream activities such as altered river flows, dams, poorly managed agriculture and poor water quality. Many of these threats have been around for decades and even centuries, but today there are two main issues that impede oyster recovery efforts.
http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/...-have-vanished