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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2016
Maturing oyster recovery
Projects
eforts bring calls for money across the
country
Small-scale projects to
restore oysters in wild
By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
By WAYNE PERRY
Associated Press
LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. — Oysters
were once so abundant in New Jersey that vaca-
tioners would clamber off trains, wade into the
water and pluck handfuls to roast for dinner.
Their colonies piled so high that boats would
sometimes run aground on them, and they were
incorporated into navigation maps. Even ear-
lier, Native American tribes would have oyster
feasts on the banks of coastal inlets.
But over the centuries, rampant develop-
ment, pollution, overharvesting and disease
drastically reduced the number of oysters, here
and around the country; many researchers and
volunteer groups estimate oyster populations
are down 85 percent from their levels in the
1800s.
That has sparked efforts throughout the
coastal United States to establish new oyster
colonies, or fortify struggling ones. Though
small in scale, the efforts are numerous and
growing, and they have a uniied goal: showing
that oysters can be successfully restored in the
wild, paving the way for larger-scale efforts and
the larger funding they will require.
While a main goal is increasing the numbers
of succulent, salty shellish bound for dinner
plates, oysters also serve other useful purposes.
They improve water quality; a single oyster can
ilter up to 50 gallons of water a day. They also
can protect coastlines; the hard, irregular oyster
beds serve as speed bumps that obstruct waves
during storms.
“It’s many years and millions of dollars away,
but it is attainable,” said Steve Evert, assis-
tant director of the Marine Science and Envi-
ronmental Field Station at New Jersey’s Stock-
ton University, one of hundreds of organizations
working to start or expand oyster colonies.
Most of the projects are small-scale, funded
by government grants and volunteer donations.
Helen Henderson, of New Jersey’s American
Littoral Society, which is growing an oyster reef
in Barnegat Bay, hopes successful demonstra-
tion projects can lead to an exponential increase
in funding for bigger projects.
“Nature has shown us this can be done; we’re
just giving it a kick-start,” she said. “Hopefully
funding will low from that once we can show
successful outcomes, and we can really make a
difference on a much larger scale.”
The Barnegat Bay Partnership put up $52,000
for the oyster project Stockton is undertaking in
New Jersey; matching funds came from the uni-
versity, the Littoral Society, and a shellish busi-
ness that has invested many times that amount
on equipment and oyster seedlings.
Fledgling oysters need to attach themselves
to a hard surface in order to grow, preferably a
three-dimensional one with plenty of nooks and
crannies.
The projects usually involve dumping shells
onto the sea bed, where free-loating oyster seed
attaches to them, though some projects pre-
load the shells with tiny oyster seedlings before
dumping them at a reef site. Some involve trans-
porting more mature oysters from established
colonies to new sites.
Oyster restoration projects are underway or
have recently been completed in San Francisco
Bay; Puget Sound near Seattle; New York Har-
bor and the Hudson River; in coastal salt ponds
in Rhode Island and the state’s Narragansett
Bay; in the Carolinas, as well as Florida and the
other Gulf Coast states; New Hampshire; and
particularly in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland
and Virginia, where some of the nation’s biggest
oyster restoration programs have been under-
way for years.
In 2014, U.S. ishermen and growers pro-
duced nearly 36 million pounds of oysters worth
nearly $250 million, according to the National
Marine Fisheries Service. But oyster landings
have plummeted from their heyday in the 1800s.
In Chesapeake Bay, 120 million pounds of
oysters were brought ashore in 1880; by 2008,
the amount was around 1 to 2 million, accord-
ing to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
“We’ve knocked this resource down so far
that it would be impossible to get it back to 100
percent of its historic high,” said Bill Goldsbor-
ough of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “I’d
feel wonderful if we could get it back to 50 per-
cent, but we’ll probably fall short of that. But
remember: Today we’re in single digits, and it
would still be a phenomenal improvement.”
Businesses are getting involved, too. Com-
mercial shellish processors, which steam
whelks, a type of sea snail used to make scungilli
salad, donate the animals’ large, crevice-illed
shells to reef restoration programs; North Car-
AP Photos/Wayne Parry
Nate Robinson, left, and Dave Ambrose, right, dump whelk shells with tiny oysters growing
on them onto a research boat in Little Egg Harbor, N.J., that was to dump them into Barnegat
Bay to become the foundation of a new oyster colony. Efforts to restore once-abundant oys-
ter populations are underway throughout the United States, and researchers and volunteers
say they are optimistic the small-scale efforts will pave the way for a major comeback of
oysters, whose populations have dwindled drastically from levels seen in the 1800s.
Dale Parsons Jr., a fifth-generation oyster-
man, holds a whelk shell on which tiny oys-
ters are growing in Little Egg Harbor, N.J.
Here are 3-week-old oysters visible as tiny
specks on a whelk shell, left, and 3-month-
old oysters growing inside a clam shell,
right, in Little Egg Harbor, N.J.
Dave Ambrose, a Stockton University grad-
uate, dumps whelk shells with tiny oysters
growing on them from a metal cage onto
the deck of a university research ship in
Little Egg Harbor, N.J., which was to dump
them overboard in Barnegat Bay to form
the basis of a new oyster colony.
Whelk shells, on which tiny oysters are growing, are piled up in Little Egg Harbor, N.J.
olina even gave a $1 per bushel tax credit to
irms that donated shells until discontinuing the
incentive in 2013. Restaurants nationwide now
collect and donate shells to conservation groups
for use in reef-building.
Dale Parsons Jr., a ifth-generation oyster-
man from New Jersey, has invested a small for-
tune in shellish aquaculture, as well as wild
oyster restoration.
“You have to listen to what nature tells you,”
he said. “The water is proving it can sustain oys-
ters. We’re just trying to help it along.”
Efforts to restore or expand oyster col-
onies are underway around the coastal
U.S. A look at some of them:
ALABAMA: 1,100 acres of oyster
reefs created from 2009-14; additional
work ongoing.
CALIFORNIA: Restoration pro-
grams in San Francisco and Richardson
bays, among others.
CONNECTICUT: State borrowed
$5.3 million for oyster restoration since
1987; enhanced 3,000 acres of existing
beds.
DELAWARE: From 2005-09, a joint
New Jersey-Delaware program deposited
2.4 million bushels of shells onto existing
reefs in Delaware Bay.
FLORIDA: Multimillion-dollar res-
toration project in Pensacola Bay using
limestone, recycled concrete and marsh
plantings. State has restored coastal hab-
itat including oyster reefs since 1994
through a grant program, has built 11 reefs
throughout Florida panhandle and recy-
cles shells from 28 restaurants; 900 oyster
reefs established along 2 miles of shoreline
in Santa Rosa County over past 20 years;
MacDill Air Force Base installed half-mile
oyster reef; volunteer groups restored 42
oyster sites since 2005.
GEORGIA: State completed 10 res-
toration projects from 2008-14, funded
in part by state ishing license fees; state
manages eight shell recycling facilities
LOUISIANA: Six 200-acre oyster
plots built from 2011-2014; oyster reefs
installed as shoreline protection in Cam-
eron and Vermillion parishes; Lake Atha-
nasio, among other spots.
MARYLAND: Some of nation’s larg-
est and most numerous oyster restoration
programs underway in Chesapeake Bay.
MASSACHUSETTS: Towns of
Barnstable and Wellleet launched their
own oyster restoration projects; nonproit
groups seeking to restore oysters in Bos-
ton Harbor.
MISSISSIPPI: State and volunteer
groups doing numerous restoration proj-
ects, including at Deer Island, Mississippi
Sound and Back Bay.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Numerous
programs, including one by University
of New Hampshire involving restaurants
and volunteers that has added more than
18 acres of oyster reefs and more than 3
million oysters to the ecosystem in the
past six years.
NEW YORK: Restoration programs,
including the “Billion Oyster Project” in
New York Harbor; Hudson River; Great
South Bay, Peconic Bay and Bronx River.
NEW JERSEY: 2.2 million bushels
of shells planted on 1,350 acres of exist-
ing oyster beds from 2003-14; projects
ongoing in Barnegat Bay; Great Egg Har-
bor; Mullica and Navesink rivers.
NORTH CAROLINA: State estab-
lished 12 oyster sanctuaries totaling 228
acres; has run oyster shell recycling pro-
gram since 2004.
OREGON: Restoration projects in
Coos and Netarts bays.
RHODE ISLAND: Numerous res-
toration projects in Narragansett Bay,
including one in which volunteers grow
bags of oysters attached to their docks
until they grow enough to be transplanted
to reefs in the bay, in coastal salt ponds
and on Block Island.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Planted
150,000 bushels of oyster shells from
2002-2006 at 34 sites covering 9 acres;
since 2001, more than 400 reefs built at
44 sites from Hilton Head to Murrells
Inlet.
TEXAS: State has been restoring oys-
ters since 2007 in Galveston Bay and
Sabine Lake.
VIRGINIA: Restoration projects at
Tangier Island; Rappahannock, Great
Wicomico and Lynnhaven rivers; numer-
ous local government and volunteer
projects.
WASHINGTON: Restoration proj-
ects in Puget Sound and Port Susan and
Woodward bays; local restoration project
in Olympia.
Sources: The Nature Conservancy;
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Law
Center; AP research
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