![oyster spat festival oyster spat festival](https://www.southfleetmotorinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/wellfleet-oysters.png)
Green Fin Studio coordinated this project in partnership with the Urbanna Oyster Festival Foundation, and Christchurch School.
![oyster spat festival oyster spat festival](https://whalewalkinn.com/wp-content/uploads/oysters-ben-stern-576106-unsplash-768x664.jpg)
This project is funded by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. In this role, we created and maintained the Restore Urbanna Creek website, multimedia data management tools, social media outreach, community workshops, and a display at the Oyster Festival (including real-time water quality monitoring). Green Fin Studio led project outreach and communication efforts for this project. Students from Christchurch School and the Chesapeake Bay Governor’s School used this project as an educational tool to learn about water quality monitoring, reef building, and local restoration projects. The project also included community engagement through workshops on oyster gardening, dockside aquaculture, and voluntary best management practices for local homeowners and marina operators. 8 million baby oysters, called “spat”, were grown on shell and placed on these reefs to begin the population growth. In the Spring of 2015, two oyster reefs were constructed using recycled shells. The goal of the Restore Urbanna Creek project was to restore a thriving population of oysters to the Creek. Oysters are the cornerstone of a healthy ecosystem- they improve water quality by filtering algae and sediment, and provide habitat for small fish and crabs. When the native oyster population in the Creek began to struggle due to disease and historical overharvesting, residents joined together to Restore Urbanna Creek.
![oyster spat festival oyster spat festival](https://i2.wp.com/usoysterfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Galway-Oyster-Festival-HM9.jpg)
60,000 to 70,000 visitors attend the festival each year to celebrate the humble oyster. Urbanna, Virginia is one of the oldest towns in America, and is home to the official Virginia State Oyster Festival – the largest oyster festival on the East coast. We have experience building websites for a wide variety of clients, including one we designed for the project Restore Urbanna Creek. We can also lead campaigns to engage with thousands of people, in person or through the web. DNR must adopt regulations that will address overfishing and protect this year's spat so they can grow, reproduce, and build new reef habitat.Green Fin Studio can design special websites for campaigns, events, or permanent use. One good year of spat set won't resolve this problem, especially if the number of oyster harvesters continues to increase. "However, certain areas of the bay are experiencing chronic overfishing that threatens the persistence of oysters in those areas. These periodic high spatfall events provide managers with a tremendous opportunity to continue to grow Maryland's oyster population if managed prudently," she said. "It's encouraging to see the highest spatfall since 1999. Oyster population levels in Maryland remain at historically low levels.Īllison Colden, the CBF's Maryland fisheries scientist, said the news about the spat was encouraging, but overfishing still could pose a threat. However, due to a disease outbreak oyster populations quickly declined and reached record lows by 2003. That year's spat set helped the market-size oyster population increase in 1999 to the highest levels recorded in the period covered by the stock assessment. The overall harvest increased annually despite DNR changing regulations before the 2019-2020 oyster season-from 145,332 bushels in 2018-2019 to 332,946 bushels in 2020-2021.ĭNR estimated this year there were about 100 spat per bushel of oysters, which is lower than the recorded high of 276 spat per bushel in 1997.
#Oyster spat festival license#
License surcharges have increased from 822 in 2018 to 1,239 in 2020, according to DNR data.Īt the meeting, DNR proposed keeping the 2020-2021 bushel limits in place, while enabling watermen to harvest oysters five days a week, which would increase the harvest week by one day.ĭNR previously restricted commercial oyster harvesting on Wednesdays to try to reduce overfishing. As the state's oyster population has increased, so has the number of commercial oyster licenses. Tangier Sound also saw significant increases in both of market-size oysters and spat.īut even with this recent population growth, areas of the Choptank and Tangier Sound are experiencing overfishing, according to the statement. The increases in market-size oysters - those above 3 inches - and spat - or juvenile oysters - were greatest in the Choptank River, which has undergone significant oyster restoration efforts, according to a Chesapeake Bay Foundation statement.
#Oyster spat festival update#
(WJZ) - The market-size oyster population in Maryland rose slightly over the past year, and spat estimates increased to the highest level in the previous 20 years, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' 2021 Oyster Stock Assessment Update released Tuesday.