4-H Members Promote Oyster Restoration

COURT HOUSE — Members of the Cape May County 4-H Club Cyber Explorers trekked through the Delaware Bay mudflats to check out an unusual nursery; one they helped to create.
In June, the 4-H club partnered with Rutgers University Scientist Lisa Calvo, coordinator of Project PORTS: Promoting Oyster Restoration through Schools, for a hands-on oyster anatomy lesson. After the class, the kids and their parents traveled to the Nature Center of Cape May to lend some muscle to the Project PORTS shell bagging effort.
Working cooperatively, the club created over 100 bags of shell to be deployed in the Delaware Bay. Each shell provides habitat for young oysters (spat) to settle on. The spat glue themselves to the shell substrate. The attached “seed” oysters are then transplanted to conservation and fishery areas in the upper bay.
This is good news for the bivalve mollusks…and for the bay. Oysters are filter feeders; they filter and clean the water while feeding. The oysters are repopulating a conservation area in the upper Delaware Bay.
During their visit to the mud flats, 4-H members assisted in taking a sample census of the settled spat. Thanks to the efforts of over 1,000 students throughout southern New Jersey, there are some 2,700 bags of shell deployed at the Rutgers Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory’s Cape Shore facility in Green Creek.
The bags are expected to provide habitat for more than five million young oysters.
“The numbers are impressive, but the relationships, learning and service are at the core of the 4-H program,” explains Cyber Explorers Club Leader Julie Karavan. “4-H is an amazing platform to connect kids to science, to one another and to some fabulous organizations and educators in Cape May County.”
Project PORTS is currently recruiting volunteers to help with the shell bag transplant scheduled for Aug. 15th and 16. For more information or to volunteer, contact Lisa Calvo at 856 575-5580 or email calvo@hsrl.rutgers.edu.