By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
It may seem hard to believe. There are 1.5 million microscopic oyster larvae in a pitcher. The American Littoral Society’s starting the process of making oyster babies by pouring the larvae into a spat tank.
“It’s like the little crib you put your baby in so we’re going to put our Barnegat Bay babies into their crib and let them rest and settle in and nurture them for about 30 days,” said Captain Al Modjeski.
The spat tank’s filled with 60 bags of whelk shells. Nearly a dozen more are filled with oyster shells. After the larvae release, the little babies, which were made in a lab, will settle onto or into a shell. About one of every 20 larvae will attach to a shell and begin to grow into an oyster.
“On a daily average, one oyster can filter approximately 50 gallons of water so the 1.5 million larvae we’re adding, if one out of 20 of those do attach, that’s quite a few million gallons of water a day that will be filtered,” Modjeski said.
“Barnegat Bay is dying. It’s a victim of over development of the watershed, polluted runoff being discharged into it and just not taking care of it for years. Our effort here is part of the Littoral Society’s attempt to help restore this bay back to health for the community and for the nature that lives in it,” said American Littoral Society Executive Director Tim Dillingham.
Today’s release is the second phase in one of the Society’s projects, aimed to help reestablish oyster colonies in Barnegat Bay. In April, their staff created an oyster reef in the Bay near Good Luck Point in Berkeley Township using 120 cubic yards of whelk shell — the baby oysters’ final destination. But for now they’ll be nurtured in the tank. It’s on a pier in Ocean Gate on the Barnaget Bay. That water’s being pumped into the tank.
“The salinity, the temperature and everything that’s in the spat tank is exactly what it would be in the Bay so it’s an accumulation process,” Modjeski said.
This is what the larvae looks like under the microscope. They’ll dine on algae here. The bubbles will help them thrive too.
“Oysters, like all living things, need air and so we have a bubbler that runs air through them and keeps them nice and rich with oxygen and it helps them be healthy and grow,” Dillingham said.
The American Littoral Society will put the baby oysters on a reef at Good Luck Point next month. They want to engage local residents which is why they’re coordinating a parade of boats and asking community members to join and help bring the oysters to their new home.
The project’s funded by NOAA and Restore America’s Estuaries.