NYCkayaker Has Anyone Seen Any Oysters?

[TomBrooklyn]

Has anyone seen any oysters anywhere in the NY/NJ Estuary?   (Sandy Hook to Ossinging, NY
including all adjacent rivers and bays.) Areas to look for them, particularly at low tide, are on
shoals with hard or rough surfaces.   

The NY/NJ Baykeeper organization,  wwww.baykeeper.org ,  who operate an oyster restoration
program, is interested in learning about the location of any live, tough oysters that have
survived the almost total devastation that was complete by 1920 due to gross overharvesting,
pollution and disease.    

See http://www.nynjbaykeeper.org/pdffiles/bkoppdoc.pdf  Page 8, Paragraph 2.   

They can use that information to help determine locations where oyster restoration efforts might
be particularly productive.     

An adult oyster filters about 30 gallons of water/day.   If a substantial amount of oysters were
reestablished in the local waters, they could have a tremendous positive impact on the water
clarity and cleanliness.    It would of course, be inadvisable to eat them.   At least for a
pretty long time.   Oysters also provide a primary ecological foundation for spawning fish and a
host of other marine life, and they can help prevent erosion along marshland land border areas
like a lot of Jamaica Bay.

Please report any sightings to them, or if you prefer, to me; and I will pass the information
along.  


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