2/20/2023 0 Comments Students oyster spat![]() ![]() ![]() Eighteen percent success-this may seem low, but our goal was toĪchieve greater than 5%, and we did more than three times that. Out of those 11 million larvae, 2 million settled onto We then extrapolated this back to the amount of shell in each cageĪnd then in each tank. We counted so much we were seeing oyster spat in our sleep! A team of Stockton University staff, students, and volunteers painstakingly count subsamples from each tank (S. We brought over 1,000 shells back to the lab and counted every single “spat” or baby oyster that had settled onto the shell. We went out on a 90 degree day and sampled shells from the cages as they were dumped on the barge. The other grueling part was the effort of my team of staff and students at Stockton University to estimate the number of oysters out of the 11 million larvae that settled onto the shell. The larvae came from Rutgers Aquaculture Innovation Center in Cape May, NJ. Each tank received 2.75 million larvae, or 11 million total. Shells, about 95% were oyster shell recycled from area restaurants in an effortįunded by Long Beach Township and the JettyRock Foundation ( read Fifteen cages were oyster shell (preferred shellįor oysters), three were surf clam shell (a bigger shell), and three were whelkīack-of-the-envelope calculations (aka counting lots and lots of shell inīushel baskets) estimated a total 300,000 shells used in this effort. We had four tanks.Įach tank had 22 cages inside. This year has been our largest effort to date. Cages being moved to a barge to be deployed on the reef (S. After they’ve grown a little bit feeding on phytoplankton (microscopic marine algae) pumped in from the bay, they are moved out of the cages, dumped onto a barge, and moved out to the reef site. The oyster larvae then settle onto the shell and metamorphose into juvenile oysters becoming permanently attached to the shell. ![]() The tanks get filled with water and millions of oyster larvae are added. At the Great Bay Marina in Little Egg Harbor, we use large fiberglass tanks crammed with cages of different shell types. ![]() For remote setting, you essentially create a replica oyster reef on shore. With the help and support of Dale Parsons, a local aquaculturist (shellfish farmer) and owner of Parson’s Seafood in Tuckerton, we’ve made this happen with grant funding from the Barnegat Bay Partnership. But even with a growing oyster aquaculture industry in Barnegat Bay, it still wouldn’t be enough to create our “forest.” For our work, we resort to a method called remote setting.Ĭages of shells in tanks at Parson’s Mariculture in Little Egg Harbor (C. For some places like Delaware Bay or the Gulf of Mexico, this strategy works. We could just dump a lot of shell into the bay and hope to catch any larvae that could settle onto them. To build an oyster reef, we need to provide substrate for the oyster larvae to adhere to. Random concrete blocks or pilings to settle onto. Huge abundance of oyster shells in the bay, oyster larvae are left to find Oyster, that means a hard surface or preferably another oyster shell. Into an adult, it first needs to find a suitable place to settle. That disperses with the currents for a few weeks. Oysters have a complex life cycle with a microscopic larval stage To really bring oysters back to the bay, we need to bring back the oyster reefs. It won’t provide any habitat or protection for other animals. It’s like having an evergreen forest with only a half dozen trees. This doesn’t mean they are extinct or even endangered, it just means that they don’t exist in the ecosystem role they were meant to play. In Barnegat Bay, the eastern oyster is functionally extinct. Christine Thompson, Assistant Professor of Marine Science, Stockton University Recipe for an oyster reefĪ lot of shell. Oyster spat growing on a recycled oyster shell (S. By Karen Walzer, 07/26/19 Share Facebook Twitter ![]()
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