Thanks to the hard work of hundreds of waterfront volunteers all up and down the Space Coast, Brevard Zoo and partners like Brevard County and the University of Central Florida recently celebrated the conclusion of the most successful season yet for their community- based Oyster Gardening program, which aims to improve water quality in the Indian River Lagoon.
The program’s second wave of about 350 volunteers — who started growing oysters from their docks and collecting data on the process in November of 2014 — returned an estimated 120,000 live oysters this spring, roughly double the number produced by the program’s first round earlier in 2014. This success, attributable largely to program refinements like a change in growing season and adjustments to how juvenile oysters distributed to volunteers are initially spawned at the hatchery, demonstrates how the program continues to grow and improve in order to expand its impacts on local water quality and ecosystem health.
The live oysters returned this spring were used in combination with a variety of other experimental construction techniques, such as “oyster mats” and bags of blank shell, to construct 75 new sections of oyster reef, a major expansion from the 15 sections initially built last year using live oysters returned by the first round of gardeners. Each adult oyster placed onto these reefs has the potential to clean up to 50 gallons of lagoon water per day through filter feeding, while also providing shoreline stabilization and food and habitat for other species.
With reef construction now complete, the Oyster Gardening program will shift focus to recruiting and training new volunteers, who will join the ranks of seasoned oyster gardeners for the next growing season, set to begin in September. This summer, a series of three, two- hour workshops will provide any interested Brevard County waterfront residents with an opportunity to receive all the training and supplies they’ll need to get involved with the program and make a difference for the lagoon. Workshop registration and a list of requirements for participants is available online at www.BrevardOysterRestoration.org.
Upcoming Oyster Gardening Workshops (reservations required):
7/31, 9:00a.m. – 11:00a.m. Brevard County UF/IFAS Extension Office, Cocoa
Brevard Zoo is a not-for-profit organization and a leader in wildlife conservation and education. The Oyster Gardening program is part of Brevard Zoo’s Brevard Oyster Restoration project, which also includes an Oyster Mats program that restores oyster habitat in the northern portion of the lagoon. For more on the Zoo’s local conservation programs, visit www.BrevardZoo.org/Conservation-Programs and www.BrevardOysterRestoration.org.
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