There are more than 1,000 oyster gardens in the coastal waters of Maryland, Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama as volunteers try to restore a keystone of coastal ecosystems.
As sales to restaurant clients dried up, oyster farmer Peter Stein had to adapt or perish. Now, he's delivering oysters directly to individual customers, doing about 20% of his usual business.
Fewer ships from China are docking in the U.S., which hurts U.S. farmers who send exports on the ships' return trips. And perishables that do make it sometimes rot on the docks in China.
Record flooding on the Mississippi River sent too much fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico, killing oysters and crippling other seafood harvests that depend on saltwater to survive.
Tighter regulations on oyster harvesting have helped reduce the number of people affected by the deadly bacteria Vibrio vulnificus, but warming waters have allowed the bacteria to expand and thrive.
More than 70 New York City restaurants are pouring their discarded shells into the Billion Oyster Project, through which students recycle and transform them into healthy reefs in once-toxic waters.
The "off-bottom" production method, in which oysters are grown in hanging baskets tumbled by waves, is starting to flourish on the Gulf coast — and demand for these boutique bivalves is growing.
The sunken Hero, an Antarctic research vessel from the 1960s, is leaking oil into Willapa Bay, where more than half of the state's oysters are grown. And no one knows how to remove it.
Modern-day oyster populations in the Chesapeake are dwindling, but a multi-millennia archaeological survey shows that wasn't always the case. Native Americans harvested the shellfish sustainably.
Oysters from the Pacific Northwest have long been the most coveted for their sweet, mild flavor. But they now have more competition from Southeast oysters cultivated from Virginia down to Florida.
Going on a picnic with someone special? Make sure to pack watermelon, a food that lore says is an aphrodisiac. No food is actually scientifically linked to desire, but here's how some got that rep.
