“Aphrodite” oysters on the half shell. “Aphrodites” are a Pacific oyster varietal from Moonlight Oyster Co., grown by biologist-turned-oyster-farmer Ralph Riccio ’04 on Marrowstone Island in Puget Sound.
How a network of URI alumni is working to sustain healthy—and delicious—shellfish populations in the Pacific Northwest.
By Michael Blanding
Julie Barber, M.S. ’04, remembers walking the beach on Skagit Bay in Washington during the extreme heat wave event of June 2021. A week of 100-degree temperatures combined with record-low tides caused a massive die-off of oysters, clams, barnacles, and mussels that literally baked in their shells. “Everything on the beach was cooking, because there was no water,” says Barber, senior shellfish biologist for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. She took to email to sound the alarm. “I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this is serious—the tribe is going to lose a ton of resources.”
One of the first messages she sent was to fellow URI alumnus Chris Eardley ’05, Puget Sound shellfish policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and his team.
“I give Julie a lot of credit as one of the people who spearheaded the initial effort as this heat wave event unfolded,” Eardley says. He, along with his team and colleagues, helped her mobilize a working group of biologists and officials across the inland waterway known as the Salish Sea. The group shared observations online to catalog the deaths of millions of marine invertebrates.
Later that year, Barber coauthored a paper in the journal Ecology that analyzed the mortality event, noting patterns in the factors that led shellfish in different areas to succumb to the heat, and made recommendations on how to better collect data during future events, which climate change makes more likely.
Julie Barber, M.S. ’04, senior shellfish biologist for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, visits a 4,000-year-old clam garden in the Gulf Islands, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, with the Swinomish Tribe.
The collective response to the die-off is one example of how a small but influential group of URI alumni, including Barber and Eardley, is making an outsized difference in the health and sustainability of the shellfish industry and wild shellfish populations in the Pacific Northwest.
Margaret Pilaro ’92, M.A. ’97, is executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association (PCSGA), coordinating policy and practice for commercial shellfish aquaculture on the West Coast.
Barber’s husband, Jay Dimond, M.S. ’06, a research assistant professor at Western Washington University, is working to conserve native species, including Dungeness crab and pinto abalone.
Biologist-turned-oyster-farmer Ralph Riccio ’04 is influencing seafood sustainability with his artisanal Moonlight Oyster Co., making an explicit connection between marine ecosystem health and accessible seafood.
They share a common love for the marine environment, along with skills in resource management born and nurtured in Rhode Island and now practiced more than 3,000 miles away.
Crabs and Clam Gardens
Barber arrived in Washington state in 2009. A year later, she started her job as the senior shellfish biologist with the federally recognized Swinomish Tribe, a signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, with vast ancestral homelands, including the Skagit River and marine waters of the northern Salish Sea. Previously, she’d worked as a research diver in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, and, wanting more experience, came to URI to earn a master’s in biology. While studying Dungeness crab populations in Alaska, she worked with legendary professor Stan Cobb, who was responsible for creating URI’s marine biology program. “He forced me to think independently,” she says. “He cared deeply about his students. For him, it was always ‘student first.’”
In Washington, Barber began studying the geoduck—pronounced “gooey-duck”—a large clam with a fleshy siphon that can extend up to 3 feet. She now runs a team of six biologists, researching and restoring oysters, intertidal clams, Dungeness crab, and other species.
Vinnie Cayou (left) and Julie Barber tag Dungeness crabs for a research study.
One of 20 treaty tribes in Washington, the Swinomish Tribe reserved—among other rights—its rights to fish and hunt in perpetuity in its “usual and accustomed” fishing grounds. Over the years, however, non-native wildlife managers suppressed the tribes’ access to fishing, and some even blamed native fishers for the decline of salmon populations.
In a resurgence of Native American activism in the 1960s and 1970s, tribes asserted their rights to harvest fish and shellfish through nonviolent civil disobedience. Local fishers and police met them with violent hostility in what became known as the Fish Wars. The federal government sued the state of Washington, leading to a landmark decision in 1974 by Judge George Boldt recognizing tribes’ treaty-protected rights and establishing a legal framework for fishing disputes that remains in use to this day. Two decades later, in 1994, Judge Edward Rafeedie extended that decision to include shellfish. The Boldt and Rafeedie decisions have created a unique situation in which shellfish stocks are now jointly managed between state and tribal authorities.
“Where we come in is in doing the science to improve the information given to managers to make sure fisheries are sustainable for, as the tribes would say, many generations to come,” Barber says.
As salmon stocks have declined over the years, Dungeness crab has become the most economically important fishery in the state. Larger and meatier than the Eastern blue crab, it is often boiled or steamed and served whole, prized for its sweet, briny flavor. Barber and her team initiated a program to collect data on crab larvae to predict how many adults may appear in four to five years. She’s collaborated with other tribes, as well as with Eardley and other fish and wildlife officials, through a research network she cofounded, the Pacific Northwest Crab Research Group, which includes efforts to better predict adult crab biomass among its most important research priorities. “It’s basically a guidebook for the five million questions we still need to answer to better understand this incredibly important fishery,” she says.
The Swinomish Tribe’s shellfish community liaison, Joe Williams, praises Barber for revolutionizing the tribe’s Fisheries Department. “She’s an amazing biologist and has built an amazing team,” he says. “She leads the team as they study and restore shellfish, with the goal of providing new information to our managers for use in a policy setting.”
Shellfish are a vital part of the tribe’s diet. “Our elders tell us, ‘When the tide is out, the table is set,’” Williams says. “Our tie to our food is deeper than physical nourishment; it’s a spiritual connection—way deeper than going to McDonald’s and getting a Big Mac.”
Recently, with Barber’s help, the tribe constructed a clam garden—an ancient practice in which a rock wall is built along the beach, creating a terrace of sediment where clams and other species can flourish. “It should really be called a sea garden,” Williams says, “because there’s a little bit of everything growing in there.” By tribal consensus, the garden was established on a beach where clams are free from toxins and can eventually be harvested for human consumption (rather than crab bait) or used for subsistence farming and education, rather than for commercial sale.
Joe Williams, shellfish community liaison for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, welcomes the community to the recently constructed Swinomish clam garden. The first modern clam garden built in the U.S., the Swinomish garden revives an ancient practice for the tribe.
“Our tie to our food is deeper than physical nourishment; it’s a spiritual connection.”
—Joe Williams Shellfish Community Liaison, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community
In addition to providing tribal identity, says Barber, clam gardens can also respond to changing climate conditions—like the devastating 2021 heat wave event. Other researchers have found that clams are more likely to survive heat wave events when they are in clam gardens versus a regular beach. Additionally, the calcium from oyster shell material that is used in constructing the gardens can potentially help combat ocean acidification. The practice could become an important part of ensuring sustainable harvests in the future. “It’s not just about creating a space where clams might grow more naturally; it’s also an adaptation strategy,” Barber says. “We’re collecting all of the data, and if it’s successful, we can try to expand it.”
Restoring, Protecting, and Sustaining Shellfish Resources
At the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Eardley has instituted policies and procedures to maintain the state’s shellfish industry. “My role is to connect the best available science with policy to manage and protect shellfish resources,” he says. The state is the nation’s top producer of shellfish, with 300 commercial farms meeting 25% of domestic consumption, as well as significant exports. He must also consider the hundreds of thousands of recreational fishers, hundreds of commercial fishers, and the general public, all vying for the same wild shellfish resources and ocean real estate, as well as the nonprofits focused on conserving those spaces.
“The biggest challenge is weighing all the interests and voices and making decisions in the best interests of sustaining resources, protecting Puget Sound, and providing opportunities for folks to go out and harvest,” says Eardley. “Those of us who work in this realm feel like we could easily transfer our skills to the United Nations.”
Despite the competing stakeholders, Eardley thrives in the fast-paced environment and is energized by the work of helping to restore marine ecosystems, to which he feels deeply connected. He grew up in Canton and Marshfield, Mass., “flipping rocks over at low tide to see what critters I could find,” he says. “Now, I get paid to think about clams all day, which is a dream come true.”
Chris Eardley, ’05 (at left), Puget Sound shellfish policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, conducts an oyster survey in Quilcene Bay, Washington, for the purpose of advising potential native (Olympia) oyster restoration in the bay. Eardley is pictured with his colleague, Brian Allen, of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund, a key partner in native shellfish restoration.
Eardley came to URI as much to surf the Rhode Island coast as to study marine affairs, a field that combines marine biology, ecology, law, policy, economics, and social science. “It really scratched my intellectual itch and gave me access to all of the different subject matter areas I use in my job today—areas that are practical in managing both natural resources and the people using those resources.” He’s proud of recently implementing a state-of-the-art digital dashboard, where shellfish harvesters can easily enter state-mandated data, replacing an antiquated paper system.
In addition to managing fisheries, his operation is involved in species restoration. For his master’s at Oregon State University, he worked with the Nature Conservancy and the state of Oregon on restoring the Northwest’s native Olympia oysters. Common until the early part of the 20th century, pollution and overfishing caused the range of the half-dollar-sized Olympia oyster to decline by 95%, giving way to the larger and heartier Pacific oyster, imported from Japan. The state is partnering with nonprofits, as well as county and tribal governments, including the Swinomish, to strategically reintroduce shell and oyster seed in bulk in an effort to restore populations.
“My role is to connect the best available science with policy to manage and protect shellfish resources.”
—Chris Eardley ’05, Puget Sound Shellfish Policy Coordinator, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Eardley and his team are also working to restore pinto abalone, a giant marine snail that has suffered a dramatic population decline in recent decades. Aiding in that effort is Jay Dimond, who has been helping analyze the genetics of abalone in the Salish Sea to ensure viable populations. Dimond studied coral reefs as a master’s student at URI before heading west to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Washington. Today, he focuses on population genomics and connectivity of marine species at Western Washington University. (He and Barber live an hour south, on Fidalgo Island near the Swinomish Reservation.)
The pinto abalone decline led the state to implement a harvest ban in the 1990s, he says. About the size of a large hand, the species reproduces through broadcast spawning, which means that males release sperm and females release eggs into the water column to be fertilized. Success depends on having many individuals in proximity. “If you have low densities, reproduction is not effective,” Dimond says. By the time officials put limits on fishing, it was already too late, and populations struggled to rebound. Recently, the Puget Sound Restoration Fund, in partnership with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, has pursued a hatchery program to restore stocks, enlisting Dimond to analyze the genetics to ensure proper diversity. “Genetic diversity is the raw material for responding to environmental change,” he says. “Without it, a species is at risk of extinction when conditions change.”
First, Dimond surveyed the genetic diversity of the remaining wild abalone, finding that while numbers have drastically declined, they’ve retained enough genetic diversity to thrive. By contrast, he found a notable lack of genetic diversity in abalone planted 10 or 15 years ago, a phenomenon known as genetic drift. The good news is that diversity has rebounded among more recently transplanted abalone, offering hope for restoration of the species.
Jay Dimond, M.S. ’06 (second from left), with colleagues from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Puget Sound Restoration Fund conducts a survey of endangered pinto abalone.
“Genetic diversity is the raw material for responding to environmental change.”
—Jay Dimond, M.S. ’06
Oysters Not Like the Others
Unlike her Pacific Northwest colleagues, Margaret Pilaro often has a sunny view out her window. As director of PCSGA, she’s based in San Diego. But her work regularly takes her north to interact with fellow URI alumni in Washington state (as well as east to Washington, D.C., where she coordinates lobbying with her counterpart, Bob “Skid” Rheault, M.S. ’95, executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association). Like Eardley, Pilaro majored in marine affairs at URI, giving her the perfect background for navigating the concerns of the diverse population of West Coast shellfish growers.
“It’s part science, part policy, part economics, and I think that’s made me into the professional I am today,” Pilaro says. “I always say I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.” Studying in a small state where everyone knows each other had advantages. “I used to call the governor’s office based on knowing someone who knew someone, but that changed when I moved to a larger state and realized access to elected officials was different here.”
Now, with a staff of three and a board of 17, she coordinates the diverse interests of Pacific mussel, oyster, clam, and geoduck producers along the West Coast. Most, she says, rely upon hatcheries to produce larvae for aquaculture operations—both because natural spawning doesn’t produce the harvest the industry needs, and because changing ocean conditions—like acidification—have made it harder for larvae to survive in natural conditions.
Margaret Pilaro ’92, M.A. ’97, executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, demonstrates how to shuck oysters, sharing the craft and coastal heritage behind one of the West Coast’s most iconic and sustainable seafood traditions.
“In many coastal communities, shellfish aquaculture is the top economic driver.”
—Margaret Pilaro, ’92, M.A. ’97, Executive Director Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association
The shellfish industry is constantly changing. “Understanding the impact humans have on the environment is really important,” says Pilaro. “We’re seeing more storms, more freshwater inputs from atmospheric rivers that impact the growth and health of shellfish.” In addition, she says, there’s a constant push-pull between aquaculture and other coastal uses, like recreation and residential development. Pilaro’s organization educates communities about the importance of a working waterfront, not just as a source of food, but also for economic health. “In many coastal communities, shellfish aquaculture is the top economic driver,” she says.
Among her accomplishments, she cites lobbying efforts in Congress that secured vital funds to formalize a shellfish genetics program that helps ensure shellfish stocks can adapt to ocean changes and build disease resistance.
PCSGA also helps Pacific Northwest shellfish growers gain access to research that informs farming decisions and cultivation to better serve the thriving half-shell market. For example, tumbling oysters, either by hand or by harnessing natural tides and currents, encourages oysters to develop deeper, rounder cups, which improves the “slurping experience” and presents elegantly on the plate.
As demand for premium half-shell oysters has surged, producers have embraced distinct branding. Names like Hog Island Oyster Co.’s Sweetwater and Hama Hama Oyster Company’s Blue Pool signal place, flavor profile, and growing technique, allowing each oyster to tell its own story.
“It’s been wonderful to see that kind of innovation,” Pilaro says.
One producer newly making a mark is Moonlight Oyster Co., run by Ralph Riccio, who grew up in Smithfield, R.I., with a family home in Matunuck. During his time at URI, he worked at Matunuck Oyster Farm—run by Perry Raso ’03, M.S. ’06, who was a graduate student when Riccio was an undergraduate—and later at Matunuck Oyster Bar. Riccio worked for Save the Bay, restoring eelgrass, while also researching biodiversity in the restored eelgrass beds and developing a passion for conservation. After graduating, he volunteered with the Peace Corps, doing community-based coral and mangrove restoration in the South Pacific. That experience led him to the University of Washington, where his master’s degree research focused on the intersection of industrial shrimp production and mangrove ecosystem management in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.
With help from his lab mate, Barber, Riccio got a job as a shellfish biologist with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe of Washington and got involved in the state’s native oyster restoration efforts, as well as cultivating Pacific oysters for commercial production. (Because they inhabit different niches in the ecosystem, both species can coexist.) Riccio managed intertidal shellfisheries to ensure sustainable harvest for tribal members, supported the tribe’s oyster hatchery efforts, and was vital in efforts to reestablish historical shellfish farming grounds through arduous permitting. During the COVID pandemic, he decided to take a risk, opening his own oyster farm focused on sustainable production and accessibility.
Left to right, Ralph Riccio, Jay Dimond, Julie Barber, and Chris Eardley gather on the Hood Canal in Union, Wash., during an annual shellfish conference. The Hood Canal is part of the Puget Sound ecosystem.
“My affinity for the ocean and fascination with sea life led me to ecosystem restoration,” Riccio says. Oysters, he says, are tied to the health of the ecosystem. They naturally lead to a healthy marine environment. They filter the water to make it cleaner, and, at the same time, require clean water to meet the demands of the raw market. “As long as people eat oysters, farmers will grow oysters, and we will defend the clean water that oysters rely on.”
As much as he cares about native oyster restoration, Riccio is focused on the imported Pacific oyster for its size and flavor. “It’s like the Angus cow of oysters—if you want to produce something that’s predictably delicious and hearty, that’s your oyster.” Like many local producers, his business centers on the half-shell market. He sources oyster seed from his former employer, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, and plants them off Marrowstone Island on the Olympic Peninsula on the west side of Puget Sound, where a “unique medley of phytoplankton” gives them a “brine-forward flavor with a sweet, meaty finish.” Riccio has dubbed the oyster Aphrodite. “It’s like wine making. You can grow the same grape as your buddy is growing a mile away, and as long as it tastes different, you can call it a different name” he says. “For grapes, it’s terroir—but for oysters it’s merroir, the flavor of a specific body of water.”
Riccio sells much of his product as a partner farm for a distributor, Hama Hama Oyster Company, which selects oysters of uniform shape and size for sale to restaurants across the country. Riccio was proud to supply his oysters to his former mentor, Raso, back East.
Riccio’s passion, however, is selling local. “It’s the same story all over the world—incredible natural resources are produced and then shipped away from the communities that are growing them,” he says. Currently, he’s exploring a type of community-supported agriculture or subscription model to make oysters a delicious and accessible part of the local diet. “I want to bridge the gap between affordability and availability for this incredibly sustainable and nutritious ocean protein. By keeping it local, I save on shipping costs and contribute to the resilience of the community.”
In many ways, all of the URI alumni working in the Pacific Northwest share that mission—ensuring that delicious, affordable, sustainable seafood is available to harvest for many generations to come.
Photos: Jen Lee Light; Courtesy Courtney Greiner, Maddie Hicks, E.J. Harris, Chris Eadley; Josh Bouma; Cody Cartwright
Enjoyed reading very much. Brought back memories of shell fishing in the Sakonnet River in the 60s