"Iconic Oyster Farm Fights Climate Change as Demand Soars"

Oysters have been the foundation of a booming business for the Hog Island Oyster Company in Northern California. But ocean acidification as a result of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is threatening that.

"Oysters are big business. That might not be immediately apparent on a visit to Hog Island Oyster Company in Northern California’s bucolic Tomales Bay, where the place still has a seafood shack sensibility. The farm was started more than 30 years ago by two marine biologists who borrowed $500 from parents and a boat from neighbors and began cultivating briny bivalves in five-acres of intertidal waters. ...

In addition to the flagship farm, the company boasts an oyster bar in Napa (that survived the recent earthquake unscathed) and the recently expanded oyster bar in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, where prospective diners still wait an hour or more to snag a seat before they’re happily slurping salty, meaty morsels off the half shell. ...

The biggest threat to business? ...  A quandary known as ocean acidification or climate change’s caustic cousin. The company has been working with scientists to study the impact of this sea change in shellfish habitat that’s killing off billions of baby oysters in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. They’re also blazing a trail on the political outreach and public education front."

Sarah Henry reports for Civil Eats September 10, 2014.