About This Project

The hypothesis is native oysters can be reestablished due to new freshwater flows to Biscayne Bay.

Oysters would provide much needed filtration to the waters entering the bay. This would be accomplished by breeding native oysters in a hatchery, then placing these young oysters at select sites. With time mature upstream oysters would send their seed down stream to colonize the most habitable sites. Improving bay resiliency against persistent algal blooms.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The August 2020 Fish kill hit Biscayne Bay, killing thousands of fish and hitting the ecosystem hard. Interestingly in all the discussion on water quality, oysters were not discussed. Biscayne Bay once had a oyster fishery in the North Bay to the 1920's and its population was described as luxuriant in a 1895 report

Persistent algal blooms have led to continued seagrass die offs. Oysters serve various ecosystem services and have an economic value to the communities they serve and protect, including cleaning waters and reducing turbidity for seagrass.

Algae also effects human health and access to recreational waters. Miami Water Keeper continually updates to the community on the safety of the bay waters for recreational purposes.

What is the significance of this project?

No oyster restoration projects have been executed using breeding techniques, according to a Miami-Dade Restoration Biologist, Josh Mahoney.

Typically an oyster restoration project helps set down substrate that baby oysters can attach to. In Biscayne Bay the current population is so low that this technique is not realistic to help build up a strong population.

Breeding native oysters in a hatchery would introduce 100k -1 million seeded baby native oysters at once at ideals sites.

With new freshwater flows being introduced to Biscayne Bay in 2012 via CERP and more scheduled. This is the perfect time to start building up a native population of oysters at select sites. Oysters mitigate and remediate harmful algae growth in the bay.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of the project is to establish healthy native oyster populations at select sites including Deering Bay Estate.

This will be done by harvesting healthy and sexually ripe native oysters. These oysters will be bred at a hatchery. Used oyster shells will be collected from the local restaurants and hotels. These shells will be allowed to cure for 3 months outdoors to rid them of any foreign parasites and disease. Once cured the shells will be loaded in to mesh bags and taken to the hatchery to be seeded. Once seeded, the bags with baby oysters will be set at select sites. With time these upstream populations will mature help seed downstream oysters.

Salinity is monitored using 2 DBHYDRO Stations on the bayside, Salinity conditions will be based on oysters survival.