Dear Friends,
We are recruiting volunteers for upcoming Project PORTS oyster restoration activities.
Project P.O.R.T.S. - Promoting Oyster Restoration Through Schools - is an education and community-based oyster restoration program that helps revitalize Delaware Bay oyster populations and the important fish habitat their reefs provide. The oyster is a keystone species in the bay: improving water quality and providing food, and habitat to countless organisms.
For the 7th straight year, students throughout South Jersey made shell-filled mesh bags as part of Project PORTS. The shell bags serve as a settlement surface for young oysters (spat) when the bay’s oyster population spawns this summer. Later in the season, we will transplant the spat-on-shell to a restoration site in the bay.
We need your help deploying the shell bags into the bay!
We have 2 tasks on 2 separate days:
- Wed, 6/19 at 10am
Port Norris/Bivalve, Cumberland County, NJ
Loading the 10-lb. shell bags onto a barge in
NOTE: This activity requires upper body strength
(Rain date: Fri, 6/21 at 10am)
- Sat 6/22 at 12:30pm
Green Creek, Cape May County, NJ
Arranging the bags on the sand flats during low tide.
NOTE: Be prepared to get a little wet and muddy; closed-toed shoes required; long pants are recommended
(Rain date: Sun, 6/23 at 1:30pm)
If you can help on any or all of these days, please contact:
Shane Godshall at 856-825-2174 or shane@littoralsociety.org or
Lisa Calvo at 609-440-4560 or calvo@hsrl.rutgers.edu.
Thank you for your interest in helping to restore oysters and the critical habitat they provide in Delaware Bay!
Project PORTS 2013 is funded by:
The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
NJ Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership
The National Partnership between NOAA’s Community-based Restoration Program and Restore America’s Estuaries
DuPont Clear into the Future
Conservation Resources Inc.
and the membership of the American Littoral Society.