The Olympia Oyster: Native, Small, and Nearly Gone

Before there was an Olympia, there were Olympia oysters. The native oyster of the Pacific Northwest, Ostrea lurida, is a small animal, usually only two to three inches across, with a flavor that oyster enthusiasts describe as briny, mineral, with a faint metallic finish. Indigenous peoples around Puget Sound had been harvesting them sustainably for at least a thousand years. The shell middens at sites along the southern inlets hold layers of Ostrea lurida remains that reach back centuries.

When San Francisco exploded in size during the Gold Rush, demand for oysters exploded with it. By eighteen fifty-one, commercial harvesters were shipping Olympia oysters south by the barrelful. The beds at Shoalwater Bay, on the coast south of Puget Sound, were the first to be commercially exploited. The ones in the southern sound followed. Within decades, oystermen who had made fortunes on the native beds were watching them disappear.

Overharvesting in the late eighteen hundreds was the first blow. Pulp mill pollution in the early twentieth century was the second. By the nineteen sixties, native Olympia oyster beds across most of Puget Sound had collapsed. The oyster they named the city after was nearly absent from the waters around the city. Pacific oysters imported from Japan filled the gap commercially and are the primary commercial product today.

Restoration efforts are ongoing. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and tribal partners have been working to reestablish Ostrea lurida beds in Puget Sound, with some measurable success in recent years.

The oyster is still here. It is still small and still briny. It just no longer defines the region the way it once did, before anyone thought to give its name to a city.