SF Bay Restoration Effort Hits 2-Million-Oyster Benchmark In 1st Such Success

[hatrack]

Two million native oysters have settled on man-made reefs in San Francisco Bay over the past year, marking the first major success in an effort to bring back a species ravaged by human excess, researchers said Thursday. The reefs, made of mesh bags filled with discarded shells from Drakes Bay Oyster Co., are part of the most comprehensive experiment ever attempted to bring back the nearly extinct Olympia oyster and restore its long-lost reef habitat.

"We're seeing a lot of oysters," said Chela Zabin, a wetsuit-clad UC Davis biologist, as she headed into the bay mud to return 60 Olympias that her team of scientists had collected the previous day and studied in the lab overnight. "We're now seeing a second generation of oysters settling on the first, which is what you want to see."

The five-year, $2 million effort, led by the California Coastal Conservancy, is part of the San Francisco Bay Living Shorelines Project, which is testing a variety of oyster and eelgrass restoration projects and assessing their impacts on wildlife, wave action and shoreline erosion.

The 1-acre shell-mound reef in San Rafael near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge - and another one south of the San Mateo Bridge in Hayward - are attempts by scientists, including researchers from UC Davis and San Francisco State University, to figure out whether a natural protective barrier can be combined with habitat restoration to protect the shoreline and minimize problems caused by sea-level rise.

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/2-million-oysters-in-bay-begin-restoration-effort-4984300.php

[gopiscrap]

1. cool!