Our 60,000 native oysters in our floating nursery have grown incredibly well. We have seen NO mortality, and most of them have trebled in size (at least) in the last three months. This means our nursery site is spot-on in terms of nutrition etc. and a perfect place to be growing young oysters for restoration.
It now means that we are ready to put them on the seabed. Over the last few weeks some brilliant volunteers have been surveying likely sites around Loch Craignish to find good places to put them back. The sites have to be sheltered with the right substrate – gravel with old shell, especially native oyster, cockle and horse mussel. We’ve identified six large sites from Dunvulaig Bay down to the head of the lagoon, and this Saturday and Sunday, at low spring tide, we will be broadcasting the oysters onto the seabed, and conducting on-the-spot quadrat surveys. Once the oysters are out of the nursery and in their rightful habitat, we’ll bring in another 70,000 which will overwinter in the floating nursery. This is exciting times for marine habitat restoration – our community project, the first of its kind in the UK, is leading the way!