Phillip (PJ) Waters
Auburn University Marine Research and Extension Center
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Status: Past
Type:
Project Leaders
Project Date Range: 02-01-2022 to 01-31-2025
Keywords: oyster gardening, citizen science, community science, oyster restoration, Little Lagoon, Mobile Bay, volunteer programs
Objectives
Facilitate a meaningful connection between stakeholders from (general public) with their local estuarine ecosystem by way of hands-on involvement in a large oyster restoration project Facilitate the completion of the restorative cycle from recycled shell to nursery care by citizen participants to restoration of local reef sites
Methodology
Borrowing from the aquaculture approach the Alabama Oyster Gardening Program utilizes a partnership with the Alabama Oyster Shell Recycling Program to source seasoned recycled oyster shell otherwise destined to the garbage stream. These shells are prepared for setting at the AU Shellfish Laboratory (Dauphin Island AL). AUSL will set hatchery-spawned oyster larvae on these shell sources in the late spring. Set shell will be delivered to gardening sites across Mobile Bay and Little Lagoon in accordance with existing regulatory permits typically in late May to early June. Volunteer gardeners will protect the oyster spat in small gardens suspended from their piers for approximately six months. At this time the program will collect all oysters record final data collection and return them to restoration project sites within Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound.
Rationale
In the US restoration efforts are undertaken to reverse and/or mitigate ecological losses. Their value is used to validate restoration efforts (Grabowski and Peterson 2007). Leslie et al. (2004) reported volunteers in fisheries related projects were effective over time. Brumbaugh and Coen(2009) documented widespread oyster reef loss around the globe. Beck et al. (2011) noted that 85 of oyster reefs globally have been lost and as much as 94 of oyster reefs are functionally extinct. When considering market size eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) Ermgassen et al. (2012) reported an overall decline of 60 from 5/m2 to 2/m2 nationally and 86 in the Gulf of Mexico (14/m2 to 2/m2) within their study sites. Oyster Gardening in Alabama focuses on education and restoration/enhancement via direct general public stakeholder interaction with oyster reefs. The effort has returned more than 1 million advanced stocker size oysters ready to spawn to local restoration sites.