PORTS 2012 Call for Volunteers - Restoring Oysters in Delaware Bay
Friday, June 08, 2012
English: Delaware Bay © 2004 Matthew Trump (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We are recruiting volunteers for upcoming Project PORTS oyster restoration activities. For the 6th straight year, students throughout South Jersey made shell-filled mesh bags (oyster spat collectors) as part of Project PORTS: Rutgers Cousteau Center at Bridgeton and American Littoral Society's education and community-based oyster restoration program to help revitalize Delaware Bay oyster populations and the important fish habitat their reefs provide. The oyster is a keystone species in the bay: improving water quality and providing food, habitat and refuge to countless organisms.
The shell bags serve as a settlement surface for young oysters (spat) when the bay's oyster population spawns this summer. In August, we will transplant the spat-on-shell to restoration and fishery sites in the upper bay.
We have 3 separate tasks for which we'll need volunteers:
2) Deploying the shell bags from the barge into the water during high tide (Sat 6/23 at 11 AM)
3) Arranging the bags on the sand flats during low tide (Sat 6/23 at 4 PM)
LOCATION: Port Norris, NJ
TASK: Load barge with 10-lb shell bags
RAIN DATE: Sun, June 24th at 12:00 PM
TASK: Offload shell bags from barge onto the sand flats during high tide
Saturday, June 23rd: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
LOCATION: Green Creek, NJ
TASK: Arrange shell bags into rows on the sand flats during low tide
NOTE: Be prepared to get little wet and muddy; closed-toe shoes required