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The Nature Conservancy in Africa - Conservation in Africa

The Nature Conservancy in Asia Pacific - Conservation in Asia-Pacific

The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean - Conservation in the Caribbean

The Nature Conservancy in Central America - Conservation in Central America

The Nature Conservancy in North America - Conservation in North America

The Nature Conservancy in the United States - Conservation in the United States

The Nature Conservancy in South America - Conservation in South America

Restoring the Ossipee Pine Barrens

 

Juvenile oysters affixed to these oyster shells will be reared by volunteers at Great Bay.

Left: The "glue oyster cult" affixes juvenile oysters to old oyster shells with an epoxy. Each volunteer's cage will get approximately 500 young oysters to raise until October, when they're released to a reef. Top: Juvenile oysters get a head start on life in the cages attached to volunteers' docks in Great Bay. More than 30 volunteers will participate.
Megan Lepage photos.

Join Our Habitat Restoration Efforts 

Donate Now  Your support helps us to do the day-to-day work that it takes to restore rivers and streams, pine barrens, estuaries, and other native habitats in New Hampshire.
 

Go Deeper


UNH Oyster Restoration Program

Boston Globe Article on Oyster Restoration Efforts

The Nature Conservancy's Marine Program: Shellfish Restoration Network

Fact Sheet: Nature Conservancy Guide to Shellfish Restoration and Conservation

Fact Sheet: NH's Great Bay and Coast
Fact Sheet:
New Hampshire's Great Bay and Coast - Partnering to Protect Our Marine Environment

 

Preparing oysters for volunteers to rear at Great Bay.

Volunteers Help Restore 
Great Bay's Oyster Reefs

It's part marine biology, part conservation, and part babysitting.

This isn't some sort of a strange social experiment. It's the oyster conservationist program and it's a way for volunteers to help restore oysters to New Hampshire's Great Bay.

The estuary's oyster populations have declined over the decades because of over-harvest, pollution and disease. We are now to the point where the decline is dramatic.

Historically, oysters served as Great Bay's liver and kidneys by filtering huge volumes of water each day.

Now, there have been renewed efforts to restore Great Bay's oysters, including the Oyster Conservationist Program, a collaboration of The Nature Conservancy and the University of New Hampshire's Jackson Estuarine Laboratory, New Hampshire Sea Grant, and NOAA's Restoration Center.

The program involves more than 30 volunteers who each have dockside access to Great Bay. Each volunteer (or household) gets a small cage filled with 500 juvenile oysters that have been attached to 50 recycled oyster shells. The baby oysters are only about the size of a pinky fingernail at first. Volunteers tend to their cages regularly from August through October, removing crabs and other predators and fouling organisms that can harm the oysters. Every two weeks, volunteers check their oysters carefully, noting mortality and recording their growth.

By starting them in a controlled environment, the juvenile oysters "get a good jump start on life," said Ray Konisky, The Nature Conservancy's marine conservation ecologist.

By October, Krystin Ward, the Conservancy's oyster program coordinator,  will collect the cages that volunteers have tended so carefully, and the young oysters will be much bigger and ready to begin adult life. That's when it's time for the oysters to be released on a reef in Great Bay.

With lots of tender care and a little luck, these oysters will form a renew our reefs, filter tons of water and restore some clarity to the Great Bay estuary.
 

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): © Megan Lepage (oyster crew); © Megan Lepage (prepared oysters).