Thursday, September 07, 2017
Can students return a billion oysters to a New York harbor?
Can students return a billion oysters to a New York harbor?: Oysters were once abundant in New York City, but decades of over-harvesting and pollution led to their near-extinction there.
Nice video from PBS (that's their tagline above), worth a quick share. We've had an oyster cage on the dock at Sebago for a while and earlier this week I saw a post from one of my paddling friends that the Billion Oyster Project will officially be coming to Sebago soon!
Friday morning update - Look in the comments for more details about the Sebago project, from clubmate Jeff K. Great stuff, very exciting. Also, we have 8 oyster cages on the dock, not 1!
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2 comments:
Great video -- thanks, Bonnie! We actually have 8 oyster cages on our Sebago docks, some for up to ten years, and the oysters are doing fine! It's a blast to see school groups come and record all their data, and marvel at all the squiggly stuff that attaches to the cages. We will soon have an oyster reef, a way bigger structure, and a big deal for the Billion Oyster Project, thanks to all the help from Sebago!
If you're interested in the history of oysters in New York, check out "The Big Oyster" by Mark Kurlansky. Jamaica Bay used to ship prize oysters to the Queen of England! Tap dancing may have been invented in the downtown oyster bars run by the Irish (clog dancing) and staffed by Africans (sand dancing) ... Just sayin'.
Thanks for the update, Jeff! I guess I've only ever seen one cage come out of the water so I thought that was it, and I didn't know any further details except that our official club mermaid Vicky had posted a picture with one of the Oyster Project folks captioned "Coming soon to a Sebago shore!"
That is VERY exciting news.
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