10,000 Wild Oysters Released Onto Human-Made Reef off Coast of England

Oysters are essential for ocean health, filtering and cleaning the water and providing habitat and sustenance. Oyster reefs can also serve as storm and tidal barriers, prevent erosion and protect estuaries.

One conservationist group, the UK’s Wild Oysters Project, has released 10,000 native oysters onto a human-made reef off the North East Coast of England with the purpose of removing pollutants and creating a new marine ecosystem.

“Native oysters are ecosystem engineers, which means they change and improve the environment around them. Native oysters create a structurally complex three-dimensional habitat, which supports an abundance of other marine life and is intrinsically linked with ecosystem biodiversity,” said Matt Uttley, restoration project manager at the Blue Marine Foundation, according to a press release from the Zoological Society of London.

According to the project, native oysters were once common in UK seas, but have seen a sharp decline of 95 percent since the 1800s due to over-harvesting, habitat loss, pollution and disease.

“Native oyster reefs have disappeared from our British coastline, and with this, we have also lost the benefits that they bring, such as providing essential habitat for other marine species,” said project manager Celine Gamble, as BBC News reported. “We’re determined to bring the species back from the brink of extinction, which will in turn help contribute towards healthier and more resilient coastal waters across the UK.”

The oysters on the new reef are not intended to be consumed, but rather to reproduce and hopefully spread to additional coastal waters.

The Zoological Society of London, British Marine, Blue Marine Foundation and Groundwork North East and Cumbria all participated in the project.

“Today marks an important milestone in our journey to restore native oyster reefs to British coastlines,” Gamble said, according to the press release. “We’re optimistic that the 10,000 oysters will thrive, reproduce and grow on the new reef, which is the size of a football pitch, and we look forward to carefully monitoring their progress over the coming months.”

Over the course of recent weeks, more than 827 tons of scallop shells and stones have been placed onto the seabed to create the new reef for the remarkable molluscs.

Oysters are able to filter an enormous amount of water every day, absorbing and reducing nitrogen levels in the water.

“Despite their small size, we recognise oysters as ocean superheroes for making such a big impact within the marine coastal environment; they‘re capable of filtering approximately 200 litres of water a day — around a bathtub’s worth — which in turn contributes towards improving our coastal water quality,” Gamble said in the press release. “This new reef will give the native oyster population a chance to recover and kick-start the population’s natural growth along our coastline.”

The reef restoration is the result of three years of collaboration by marine conservationists, local communities and industry specialists.

“Oysters have historically been a part of the local culture — with signs of oysters present through ‘oyster saloons’ in Tynemouth and oyster specialist fish markets in South Shields in the mid 1800s, as well as Oystershell Hall, once situated on Oystershell Lane in Newcastle city centre — but this is the first time they’ve been restored to our waters, where they have long been absent, until now,” said Ashleigh Tinlin-Mackenzie, marine ecology technical lead for the Wild Oysters Project, in the press release.