Good news from the largest estuary in the United States:

The Chesapeake Bay's beleaguered oyster population spawned a bumper crop of babies last year, Maryland officials announced Monday, and there are signs that the diseases that have ravaged the bay's bivalves for more than two decades might have loosened their stranglehold.

Gov. Martin O'Malley heralded the "exciting new evidence" from the state's recently completed survey of Maryland waters, adding in a statement that there is "reason to be more optimistic than ever about the recovery of this iconic species."

(READ the story in the Baltimore Sun)