Delaware Tries To Save Oysters While It’s Still Possible

Between 2005 and 2009, the baby oysters that settled onto shell reefs in the Delaware Bay reached record numbers.

Scientists believe the reproductive success was linked to a four-year, $5 million project to add clam shells to existing oyster reefs in the Delaware Bay.

The clean shell — about 2.1 million bushels placed on 1.3 percent of the total shell beds in the bay — provided new habitat for baby oysters, called spat. In 2006, for instance, the rate of recruitment, as it is called, was 10 times higher on the beds with new shell than those without it.

But federal money for the shell-planting project dried up last year, and now the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary is scrambling to raise private dollars to resume the project.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: The News Journal (Delaware).