Jersey Shore Magazine

j e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 2 3 11 clams approach market size, they are raked out and put in approved bay waters, where anyone with a valid shellfish license can harvest them. Growing Oysters Oyster larvae are placed in a spat tank. "2.5 million baby oyster larvae can fit in the palm of your hand. They are delicate but quick to adapt to the tank's temperature and salinity," Duggan said. They are fed algae, and as they swim in the water column, they develop a shell. About three days after being introduced to the tanks, the larvae will sink and set on a hard substrate where they will live out their lives. In this case, the sub- strate is whelk, oyster, or clam shells inside net bags called living shoreline bags. Once the larvae permanently attach to the substrate, they undergo metamorphosis, develop a shell, and become "spat" or baby oysters. Bill Walsh, president of ReClam the Bay, explained the shells in the living shoreline bags are basically calcium carbonate, and spat adhere to them better than to other surfaces found in the bay, such as sticks, rocks, or pilings covered in algae. "Survival is better if they stick to something formed from their kind," he said. "Out in nature, there's only a one- to-three percent chance of survivabil- ity, but our set rate is better—about twenty-one percent—or 100,000 out of 500,000 of the baby oysters that set on shells from larval state to spat will survive because there's no preda- tors in the spat tanks." The spat typically spend three weeks or more growing in the tanks after they set on the shells in the bags. The bags are then transferred to Barnegat Bay and incorporated in living shoreline projects, where they help protect shorelines from erosion and provide a new habitat for other marine life. "The bags create nature- based solutions and stabilize the nat- ural shorelines," Walsh said. Living Shoreline Projects and Mordecai Island Weather conditions must be right for ReClam's two boats to navigate the waters when it is time to place the living shoreline bags of oysters in Barnegat Bay, Manahawkin Bay, and Little Egg Harbor Bay. "We look for days with fair weather conditions, low tides, and minimal winds to more efficiently deploy the spat on shell bags," Walsh said. ReClam volunteers deploy the liv- ing shoreline bags at locations such as Mordecai Island, which is an unin- habited salt-marsh island running parallel to Beach Haven. "Mordecai Island has been surveyed by the Army Corps of Engineers since 1920, and it is said to have lost almost half of its size," Duggan explained. "Eventually, it will be washed over, so we are doing our best to reinforce it." Duggan added ReClam the Bay has been partnering with the Mordecai Land Trust to restore the Island to its former shoreline since 2015. The island is a natural sanctuary for turtles and shorebirds, including several threatened and endangered species such as Black Skimmers and American Oystercatchers, and serves as a flyway stop for migrating birds. "Mordecai Island also acts as a buffer by stopping the wind and waves from traveling over the bay," Duggan said. "Without the island, Beach Haven would absorb the force of the wind and the waves." In 2010, the island was fitted with a geo-tube, which is a plastic bladder filled with sand, and living shoreline bags have been placed in front of the tube since. Shellfish are important to both humans and the environment because they play a vital role in keep- ing waters clean through their natu- ral process of filtration. An adult oys- ter, under peak conditions, can filter up to fifty gallons of water a day, where an adult clam can filter fif- teen to twenty gallons of water a day. "Teaching people about water quality is an important part of what we do," Duggan said. "When the bay's water continued on page 12 Once the oyster larvae permanently attach to the substrate, they are known as spat, here, on the inside of a clam shell. Shell bag deployment at Mordecai Island's living shoreline. Jill Ocone Jack Duggan

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