{"id":31211,"date":"2025-07-07T18:28:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31211"},"modified":"2025-07-07T19:24:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T19:24:50","slug":"increasingly-acidic-seas-threaten-oyster-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31211","title":{"rendered":"Increasingly Acidic Seas Threaten Oyster Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eighteen years ago, farmed oyster larvae began disappearing in mass die-offs, mystifying hatchery managers in the Pacific Northwest and threatening a thriving part of the region\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Up to 90 percent of the farmed Pacific oysters \u2014 the backbone of the industry \u2014 were being wiped out. Businesses like Taylor Shellfish Farms, the country\u2019s largest grower now run by the fifth generation of the Taylor family, stood at the brink of catastrophe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a crisis, the industry was going to collapse,\u201d said Bill Dewey, a spokesman for Taylor Shellfish Farms based in Shelton, Wash.<\/p>\n

The culprit turned out to be an increasingly acidic ocean, and research efforts to solve the mystery have propelled Washington State to the forefront of the world\u2019s efforts to understand and offset the shifting chemical composition of the seas.<\/p>\n

Now, the global race against ocean acidification is intensifying as carbon dioxide levels in the seas increase. A recent study found that the world\u2019s oceans crossed a \u201cplanetary boundary\u201d<\/a> in 2020, and warned that things were worse than previously thought. Researchers said the deteriorating conditions could \u201cresult in significant declines in suitable habitats for important calcifying species,\u201d including coral reefs and bivalves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing a very significant change in the rate of acidification,\u201d said Dr. Richard Feely, a chemical oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle who has been studying the problem since it first surfaced, and an author on the recent paper. \u201cThe rate of change has shown much faster change over the last 50 years than it did over the previous 200 years. The expectation is, as we continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, that rate will continue to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Eighteen years ago, farmed oyster larvae began disappearing in mass die-offs, mystifying hatchery managers in the Pacific Northwest and threatening a thriving part of the region\u2019s economy.Up to 90 percent of the farmed Pacific oysters \u2014 the backbone of the industry \u2014 were being wiped out. Businesses like Taylor Shellfish Farms, the country\u2019s largest grower now run by the fifth generation of the Taylor family, stood at the brink of catastrophe.\u201cIt was a crisis, the industry was going to collapse,\u201d said Bill Dewey, a spokesman for Taylor Shellfish Farms based in Shelton, Wash.The culprit turned out to be an increasingly acidic ocean, and research efforts to solve the mystery have propelled Washington State to the forefront of the world\u2019s efforts to understand and offset the shifting chemical composition of the seas.Now, the global race against ocean acidification is intensifying as carbon dioxide levels in the seas increase. A recent study found that the world\u2019s oceans crossed a \u201cplanetary boundary\u201d in 2020, and warned that things were worse than previously thought. Researchers said the deteriorating conditions could \u201cresult in significant declines in suitable habitats for important calcifying species,\u201d including coral reefs and bivalves.\u201cWe are seeing a very significant change in the rate of acidification,\u201d said Dr. Richard Feely, a chemical oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle who has been studying the problem since it first surfaced, and an author on the recent paper. \u201cThe rate of change has shown much faster change over the last 50 years than it did over the previous 200 years. The expectation is, as we continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, that rate will continue to increase.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31213,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31214,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31211\/revisions\/31214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}