FOR RELEASE Contact: Katie McCrone 732 888 9870 Andrew Willner cell 732 768 4848 Oysters Back at Oyster Point Restoration of a Traditional Oyster Bed at Oyster Point in Red Bank NJ a Success Keyport, NJ. NY/NJ Baykeeper announces today that oysters, once a part of the Navesink River ecology and a heritage fishery that supplied oysters to New York City, are on the rebound at Oyster Point, in Red Bank. Oysters have been an important part of the local culture in the Navesink River and the Hudson Raritan Estuary from the time the early Native Americans found and used them, until the population declined and the commercial industry closed early last century. The Oyster Point Hotel is so named because of the large Native American midden pile (opened shell pile) of oyster shells previously discovered in that area. NY/NJ Baykeeper and partners have been working to restore the once abundant oyster to the upper Navesink River for several years. This year we witnessed the first successful oyster spat set, (the settlement of baby oysters on hard places), in decades in this area. This unique success is the result of Baykeeper’s project with the cooperation of our many local partners, including: school groups, Monmouth Boat Club, Monmouth Country Friends of Clearwater, the National Marine Fisheries Service (Sandy Hook Lab), and many others, who have helped place shell and juvenile oysters on the Oyster Point restored bed to jump start the restoration process. These planted juvenile oysters have matured and spawned and their larvae are finding a home back in the Navesink. These spat are thumbnail size and larger now and have been found on many hard surfaces around Oyster Point, including the bridge abutments and rocks. This is good news for the re-birth of the River. The oysters are filter feeders and habitat creators that can be a factor in helping cleaning up the river. According to Frank Steimle, a Fisheries Biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Sandy Hook Lab), "If this recruitment survives at a significant level for a year or so, we may have another step in bringing this Estuary back towards the multi-function ecological state it was in the early 1800s. This would be a great reward for all that have worked and invested to make the estuary cleaner and to restore oysters here," He continued. Baykeeper’s Oyster Program began with the vision of putting back something that was lost. Andrew Willner, Executive Director and the NY/NJ Baykeeper, explains that "Nearly eight years ago, while on board the Baykeeper boat with Ben Longstreth, (who initiated our oyster restoration program), I looked at the chart and saw Oyster Point. I looked at Ben and asked him how long it would take to get oysters back at Oyster Point? It took longer than we hoped but a shorter time than we expected to get this result. We are very pleased,” He concluded. This project has been funded by Restore America’s Estuaries, a coalition of eleven environmental organizations conducting restoration projects in major estuaries around the country; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, through their Community-based Restoration Program, The Hudson River Foundation, The American Littoral Society, and with in-kind |
|
Register for Bahrs Landing
email updates Bahrs Landing Restaurant Famous
For Seafood Since 1917 |