Articles

• Baitfish
• 10 Questions on MASGC Communications Program
• Bays & Bayous Symposium
• Coastal Cleanup
• B-WET Grant
• NOAA Gives a Lift
• Oyster Invasion
• Announcements
• Upcoming Events
• Featured Publication
• From the Director

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Laura Bowie

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8838
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 08-011-04

Oyster Invasion
Volunteers grow thousands of oysters for restoration

Mobile Bay Oyster Gardening Program volunteers this year grew more than 59,000 oysters in Alabama. The oysters were planted on restoration sites in Mobile Bay, where they will help filter water and provide habitat for a variety of estuarine organisms.

While oyster growth in the 2008 program was slow, the survival was better than anticipated, thanks to the volunteers who cleaned algae, mud and other fouling from the cages each week.

Program participants had a better harvest than usual, according to Extension Specialist P.J. Waters of MASGC and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, who works with program volunteers.

“Thirty-four volunteers each grew an average of more than 1,700 oysters,” he said. “Volunteers usually grow around 1,000 oysters during the season, which runs from June/July to the end of November.”

Oyster gardeners grow oysters off wharves in locations classified as conditionally open for shellfish harvesting. The volunteers receive juvenile oysters (also known as spat) set on whole shell from the Auburn University Shellfish Laboratory. They place the oyster spat in special cages at the beginning of the summer and hang them from piers in the middle of the water column. Oysters are held off the bottom to help water flow through the cage and bring needed food while protecting them from predators, such as blue crabs and oyster drills.

MASGC, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Auburn University Shellfish Lab sponsor the program.