Oyster Recovery PartnershipWho We Are - Oyster Recovery Partnership

On A Mission to:

Restore Our Oyster. Clean Our Bay. Preserve Our Future.

Thank you for sharing our interest in the restoration of one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most valuable native species — the Eastern oyster. For 2o years, ORP has been a facilitator and implementer of all major oyster restoration activities for the Maryland and has become the leading non-profit in restoring oysters in the Bay.

Our restoration efforts have planted nearly 5 billion oysters in 1,600 acres in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. ORP also founded the Shell Recycling Alliance, which has recycled nearly 30,000 bushels of shell to provide homes to hatchery-raised oysters.

ORP was originally commissioned to bring together traditionally disparate groups with the goal of maximizing shared implementation of best practices among scientists, watermen, government agencies and the environmental non-profit community. With our broad coalition of partners — especially the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Horn Point Lab Hatchery — our team has been producing hundreds of millions of disease-free oysters and planting them into the Bay.

Similarly on a state and national level, we have seen a renewed focus on restoring the Bay, including President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13508. Maryland’s new vision for oysters in their portion of the Bay includes large-scale sanctuaries and the development of a reinvigorated commercial industry — all of which have further galvanized the many Bay oyster restoration participants, as well as the public, with an urgent interest to lend their knowledge, experience, science, equipment and braun to the cause of rebuilding the Bay’s native oyster population.