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Reef restoration projects aim to bolster Texas’ record-low oyster population

November 16, 2018 — With oyster populations in Texas at historic lows, The Nature Conservancy is launching two new reef restoration projects that look to appease commercial fishermen and environmentalists alike.

Using funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement, the group plans to develop 110 acres of reef in Galveston Bay and Copano Bay, near Rockport. Half of each reef will be designated as a marine sanctuary where the molluscs — which have significant economic and environmental benefits — may grow. The other half will be open for commercial fishing.

Construction of the new reefs is expected to begin this winter, with harvestable portions ready as soon as 2021.

Laura Huffman, regional director of The Nature Conservancy in Texas, said these projects show a new approach to oyster reef restoration, with the compatibility of building harvestable reefs at the same time as growing a healthy habitat.

Read the full story at KPRC 2 Houston

ALABAMA: Gulf’s First Oyster Farmer Continues to Grow

September 25, 2015 — POINT AUX PINS, Alabama — Starting as a volunteer oyster gardener way back at the turn of the century – that’s the year 2000 for those with short memory – Steve Crockett planted the first off-bottom oysters in the Gulf as a reef restoration project for the Mobile Bay National Estuary program. Fifteen years later Point Aux Pins Alabama farm is one of the largest Gulf off-bottom oyster operations supplying restaurants and grocery chains across the South.

Gathering figures on the success rate of the restoration project, a grad student informed Crockett that data confirmed he had the best oyster growth rate of any sites on the eastern or western shores of the Bay, Dauphin Island, or Coden. That was enough to convince him to try growing oysters, at least for his own use and for friends.

“We started production the following year,” said Crockett. “We adopted the Australian Adjustable Longline Method for growing our oysters. We fiddled around with that for a couple of years but ended up losing our shirts, as well as our camp house, when Katrina stuck the Alabama coast in 2005.”

Three years later, and with a new house, Crockett was determined to try once more to farm caged grown oysters.

“This was about the same time Bill Walton appeared at the Auburn University Shellfish Lab,” he told Gulf Seafood News. “He was instrumental in our decision to get back into off-bottom caged oysters.”

Getting seed from Walton’s Auburn shellfish lab, in 2009 the East Grand Bay oysterman put his first crop of oysters in the water, while at the same time testing four different kinds of grow out gear.

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

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