CROMACH (Craignish Restoration of Marine and Coastal Habitat) have successfully launched the Loch Craignish Oyster Regeneration Project and made it into the Scotsman.
Members of CROMACH community group introduced a thousand juvenile native oysters in cages near Ardfern on the shoreline of Loch Craignish in an important first step to restore this essential keystone species to a sea-loch where it was once abundant. The project, funded by Sea-Changers, and supported by Scottish Natural Heritage, is the first community-led native oyster restoration project in Scotland.
Native oysters used to be commonplace on Scottish shorelines, and a staple food for many, but in the last century human predation and disease wiped out almost all the stocks around the coastline. The native oyster is now critically endangered and they are protected in the few places where they still survive. Science now recognises that native oyster beds are an essential part of a healthy marine eco-system. Each adult oyster can clean and filter 30 gallons of water a day, and oyster reefs provide a vital habitat for a diverse range of other species.
The project at Loch Craignish aims, in due course, to place the young oysters on the seabed where it’s hoped they will spawn, settle and create an oyster reef. If the first batch do well, the plan is to introduce more, and CROMACH is developing a fund-raising scheme by which visitors and other regular users of local waters will be invited to “Adopt an Oyster” in order to raise funds to purchase more native oyster stock and the equipment to rear them.
The project at Loch Craignish aims, in due course, to place the young oysters on the seabed where it’s hoped they will spawn, settle and create an oyster reef. If the first batch do well, the plan is to introduce more, and CROMACH is developing a fund-raising scheme by which visitors and other regular users of local waters will be invited to “Adopt an Oyster” in order to raise funds to purchase more native oyster stock and the equipment to rear them.
The project has been grant-aided by Sea-Changers, and supported by Lochnell Oysters based in North Connel which has donated a proportion of the oysters and helped with the equipment and stock. Care and monitoring of the young oysters will be conducted by CROMACH members in conjunction with schoolchildren from the local Primary School in Ardfern. This will include keeping the oysters predator-free as well as measuring growth rates, weight and water quality using Sea-search data recording sheets.
[photo credit: Philip Price, Loch Visions Photography https://www.lochvisions.co.uk/]