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"  This Monday, lovers will find their Valentine&amp;#039;s Day menus full of fondues, caviar, chocolates and other seductive dishes they may notice one of the most popular romantic menu items has gone missing: the scrumptious, briny, plump, juicy, and now endangered, wild oyster. Harken back to a time long gone when the Romans ruled the world and oysters were so plentiful that through their filtering the English Channel was kept crystal clear. Cut to the late Victorian era when they were so abundant that they were considered a staple food for the working class. Quick cut to modern day where a team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz has examined 144 locations in 40 regions around the world where the luxurious bivalves once thrived. The study found that generally conditions were poor for the many species - so poor that the team deemed wild oysters to be functionally extinct, which means they no longer play a significant role in the ecosystem. Their role is not just to be delicious or to act as an aphrodisiac, but also to filter impurities from the water, as mentioned above. This filtering helps keep fish populations healthy and helps prevent coastal erosion. More from Delish: Eat Green: 12 Recipes for the Earth-Friendly Oysters are fast disappearing as 85 percent of the reefs that they inhabit have been destroyed by disease and over-harvesting. The oil spill seems to be the straw that broke the wild oyster population&amp;#039;s back. The Gulf of Mexico was one of the last places in the world where wild oysters were at high populations levels. The oil spill destroyed nearly half of the reefs. Dr Michael Beck, the leader of the study, predicts that if nothing is done to help the wild oysters they could be gone within a generation. It would not be the first time wild oysters disappeared completely from a region. The wild oyster population in Greece and Colombia was wiped out in the 1990s by unmanaged harvesting, which ruined the reefs. The researchers recommend ratcheting up efforts in reef conservation, fisheries management and controlling the spread of non-native shellfish. A quick note to end a doomsday post: the Chesapeake Bay has seen a bumper crop of baby oysters, which had previously been in a stranglehold of disease. The population is at its highest level since 1997 and survival rate is up. Though this hopeful situation was brought about mostly by favorable weather, which is unreliable, Maryland Governor Martin O&amp;#039;Malley has put in place a plan that has increased Maryland&amp;#039;s oyster sanctuaries and has put money towards better sustainable fishery management. More from Delish: Learn the Secret to Finding Great Oysters "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a38446/wild-oysters-on-the-verge-of-extinction/>