For more than 40 years Maryland has had to put up with a special kind of bug; one that thrives in the warm, salty waters of the Chesapeake, and in great proportions, starves oysters to death. These parasites carry two diseases - Dermo and MSX, which though not harmful to humans, is lethal to oyster populations.

As oyster numbers dwindle, more attention has been drawn to their restoration as they are a vital part of Maryland, and more specifically, the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem. Besides being a tasty entree at the dinner table of your favorite seafood restaurant, oysters naturally filter the bay of pollutants and act as a platform for other sea-life to thrive on their coral reef of sorts, created when they exist in large populations along the sea bed.

Imagine the billions of dollars that would go into keeping the Bay clean had it not been for the tireless efforts of the millions of oysters "holding down the fort", so to speak? Now imagine the millions of dollars of revenue local businesses would lose had there not been enough or any oysters offered on their menus because of these diseases wiping them out? These are just some of the concerns that take precedence when it comes to oyster preservation in the Chesapeake.

Located on the banks of the Choptank River, Horn Point Lab, a department of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, is a leader in applying environmental research and discovery to solve this problem Maryland is having with the oyster population of previous years. Their power-in-numbers approach works to beat the odds of oyster mortality, while promoting an even longer life-span. This process begins at their Oyster Hatchery located in the Lab.

We spoke with "Mutt", who works at the Oyster Hatchery and did some number-crunching with us. In the wild, when oysters spawn, only one percent of the millions of eggs strewn survive to be thriving oysters. When Horn Point Lab farms oysters, nearly all of the oyster eggs are fertilized. Of that, about 50 percent survive to the state where they are called spat, and by the time the spat are reintroduced to the Bay, about 25 percent go on to live a healthy life.

25 percent survival rate in the hatchery compared to one percent in the wild - not bad if you ask me. In a report released at the beginning of this year, Horn Point Lab Oyster Hatchery reared a record 750 million spat for their Chesapeake Bay oyster recovery program in 2009, and they are planning to do as well this season. Oysters all across the bay are clapping, praising the invaluable work and relentless efforts of the Horn Point Lab.

Written by Errol Webber. Photography & Video by Errol Webber.