Oyster Babies Come to Upwellers

The 2012 growing season officially began this week.  On Tuesday June 5 Gef delivered 200,000 seed oysters to the following upwellers.  Cattus Island received 50,000 and MYC and IBSP received 25,000 each.  On LBI the following upweller sites got 25,000 each, Surf City, Barnegat Light, Brant Beach and Beach Haven.

This photo shows the average size of a seed oyster to be between 2-3 mm.

1. On Wednesday June 6, Gef came to Cattus Island with 3 million eyed larvae oysters to start this year’s Spat-on-Shell remote setting project.  A good number of RCTB members and  “clam college” students were in attendance along with a group of students from Ocean County College who happened on a nature field trip with the park naturalist Chris Claus.    Bill Shadel from the American Littoral Society was given the task of distributing the larvae into the tank.  The larvae will set on the surf clam shells in one to three days and become spat.  The oysters will than remain there for their entire life span.  In four weeks we will take the shell bags with their spat to the reef at Good Luck Point.