ly causing the price to rise. Restaurant owners in the Bay area say that the price of oysters and crabs has risen so greatly that they can no longer make a profit off of the victuals (Lipske). The hazard of serving oysters has increased because they are usually served raw and pollution related diseases that the oysters carry could harm humans. The fisherman themselves have decreased their profit due to a disease that is wiping out a great deal of the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay. The parasite is called Multinucleated Sphere X (MSX), it may be caused by the fact that oysters feed by filtering particles suspended in water which helps to clear pollution. These particles, due to the excessive amount of pollution have weakened their immune system, making them more susceptible to disease (Impacts of Disease and Disease Resistant Oysters). To counteract the downturn in oyster harvesting the government, economists, as well as environmental theorists have offered a number of plausible solutions. Due to the disease, harvest output has decreased causing some to contend that the easiest way to fix the problem is to increase the population artificially. A Japanese Oyster species could be introduced to the Bay area, the oyster is resistant to the MSX parasite. The benefit to the oyster fisheries would be great because these oysters are more desirable on the market due to their size and they would multiply quickly. The major risk of this project is that if the oyster does not act precisely like the native oyster the costs to the habitat would be great. Introducing a non-native organism into a habitat has great costs if it overtakes the environment, which happens often when no native predators exist to keep the population under control. If the new oyster species over populated the bay the costs to the other industries that depend on the bio-diversity of the Bay would be greater than its benefits to the oyster industry. Another ...
