![]() ![]() TNC will monitor the project for the next two years.Attract oyster spat. “But at our trajectory, we’re losing that.” “We hope to create sustainable levels of growing and harvesting so people can continue to enjoy good, local seafood and continue to commercially and recreationally fish,” Mr. “It’s good to save the shells that are being shucked in restaurants, and get in place a mechanism to save that resource,” Mr. He talked about restoration work on Edgartown Great Pond, and progressive shellfish recycling programs. Karney said there are efforts to create a more sustainable environment for oysters. ![]() “Our need is no less than anywhere else,” he said. ![]() Kachmar, but he said New England is catching on. Restoring oyster beds for ecological purposes is fairly new in Massachusetts, according to Mr. But, it can be bad because disease can wipe out a population.” It can be good because they can keep disease out. “Ponds can be isolated from the rest of the ocean. “Disease plays a big role,” he said, adding that the surf-clam shells were cleaned prior to being unloaded into Tisbury Great Pond. Kachmar said, humans aren’t all to blame. “And as we harvest the oysters, we’re destroying the habitat.”īesides over harvesting, and the use of oyster shells for things like roads and driveways, Mr. ![]() “Unfortunately, we take the oyster shell out of the pond and in most cases it doesn’t go back,” Mr. Kachmar said, 85 percent of oyster beds are gone. He said it’s important to preserve them since they are important to maintaining or even improving water quality as well as cycling nutrients and providing a coastal ecosystem. Karney said oysters are considered a “keystone” species. They can filter approximately 50 gallons of water a day, he added. Oysters are good, natural filters for water, Mr. “It provides all kinds of places for all kinds of animals to grow.”īesides providing a habitat for other fish and critters, oyster beds can remove polluting nutrients, like nitrogen. “They’ll build these nice reefs with nooks and crannies,” Mr. Karney said, will hopefully expand to join one another and create an environment similar to a coral reef. The strategically placed piles of surf-clam shells on the bottom of Tisbury Great Pond, Mr. Later, the bags will be opened and the contents dispersed over the surf-clam shells. Rick Karney, shellfish biologist and director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, said once the juvenile oysters have attached themselves to the scallop shells, they would most likely be hanged from floats for several weeks in July or August. Kachmar referred to this process as “spat on shell.” The bags of scallop shells would be transported to the MV Shellfish Group, where juvenile oysters, or spat, will hopefully attach to the scallop shells. Nearby, TNC interns Benjamin Miller and Forrest Carroll stuffed scallop shells into nets in preparation for the next phase of the project. Project members worked for several hours using an excavator to move surf-clam shells from a dump truck to a barge, and then traveling across Short Cove to Town Cove to unload the surf-clam shells in specific areas to create a hard surface foundation for juvenile oysters to attach, and hopefully spawn. The project will cover a total of around 100 cubic yards in the 736-acre Tisbury Great Pond. On Saturday, a team from TNC, along with town shellfish wardens from Chilmark and West Tisbury, made several trips via barge from Sepiessa Point Reservation to a designated one-acre site in Town Cove to dump enough surf-clam shells to cover 60 cubic yards. ![]()
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