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Portfolio V: Restoring Oysters To The Chesapeake Bay
Maryland Sea Grant's commitment to oyster outreach and education has resulted in the development of wide-ranging expertise. By targeting our limited resources and utilizing programmatic strengths we have worked to effectively deliver research-based information. In some cases we have taken the lead - for example, through our newsletters,
Marine Notes, Maryland Aquafarmer, Maryland Sea Grant Schools Network News, through videos, and the web. In other cases, we have leveraged Sea Grant expertise through partnerships within the University System of Maryland and with other organizations, agencies and mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Programs. Here are examples of efforts to reach different stakeholder interests.
Achievements
- Program Newsletters. The bimonthly Marine Notes and quarterlies Maryland Aquafarmer and Maryland Sea Grant Schools Network News are our primary means for reaching diverse interests in the Bay. For example, subscribers to Marine Notes include scientists, resource managers, Chesapeake Bay Program policy makers, legislators, educators and citizens active in Chesapeake Bay issues. From 1989 to 1999, feature articles in Marine Notes covered issues related to research for understanding and combating disease, the ecological role of oysters, and new management proposals, from The Oyster Roundtable agreements to the recent scientific consensus that lays out requirements for promoting sustainable oyster populations in the Bay. Aquafarmer is designed for growers and others with specific interests in aquaculture and education - since 1996, we published some 14 articles related to farming oysters, gardening, management, education and hatcheries. Maryland Sea Grant Schools Network News, with a mailing list of 1700 educators in Maryland, as well as a web presence, focuses on hands-on teaching techniques - recent issues carried articles on the oyster immune system and provides laboratory activities that teachers can use in the classroom.
- The Eastern Oyster: Crassostrea virginica. This 730-page book is the most comprehensive scientific text about the biology of C. virginica. The Eastern Oyster has received high praise in the peer-reviewed literature and serves as the basis for oyster educational programming, particularly in our print and web-based oyster efforts. "Hunting for Hemocytes," the lab activity published in a recent issue of Schools Network News, available as an interactive lesson on the web, draws upon The Eastern Oyster.
- Remote Setting Workbook and Workshops. Written and produced with support from the Northeastern Regional Aquaculture Center, the workbook provides detailed information on the design of systems for setting oyster spat as well as management guidelines for optimizing production. The workbook grows out of scores of hands-on demonstrations and presentations on remote setting in the mid-Atlantic and east coast. While disease still presents formidable problems as far as successfully rearing oysters to harvestable size, SGEP has been working with commercial watermen to set their own oyster seed for planting on leaseholds.
- Brood Stock Management in the Hatchery. In a partnership with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Laboratory, SGEP specialists conducted workshops for east coast hatchery managers and growers that introduced the disease-resistant shellfish and their management. Programs included commercial and state managers in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and North Carolina
- Oyster Gardening for Education and Restoration. Maryland Sea Grant works with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation through The Oyster Alliance in classes for master gardeners. With Sea Grant advice, the program went from using cultchless oysters (subject to great predation) to spat on shell, which has led to greater survival. Maryland Sea Grant has developed a web-based site for introducing gardeners to oyster biology and ecology, setting up and maintaining oysters in Taylor floats, the history of oyster aquaculture in Maryland, and the means for master gardeners to record data. Sea Grant specialists teach workshops to Master Gardeners and have helped rewrite the user manual.
- Hatchery Production of Oysters. Production of oyster larvae and seed oysters for restoration, research and education is primarily from the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory hatchery, which is operated in collaboration with Maryland Sea Grant Extension. Eyed-larval production, which has gone from 82 million in 1994 to 1.9 billion in 1999, is used to produce oyster spat (young oysters on shell) for restoration activities, for research on a wide range of oyster-related topics and for use in education and outreach programs for watermen, oyster culturists, students and the public.
- Oysters in the Classroom. A comprehensive web-based learning experience that currently has three interactive modules: (1) Oyster Anatomy Laboratory, which covers external and internal anatomy; (2) Hunting for Hemocytes, a lesson which discusses the immune system and demonstrates how to extract hemolymph and isolate blood cells for experiments; (3) Particulate Matters, a filtering experiment that demonstrates how the oyster is able to filter organic and inorganic materials from the environment and distinguish between food or pseudofeces. These lessons are integrated into the Maryland State Department of Education 5E format; teachers may use this material on line or download the lessons.
- Oysters in the Field. Sea Grant Extension specialists have been instrumental in developing and collaborating in hands-on education programs. For example, all St. Mary's County seventh-grade students (50 classes, approximately 1,200 students) now participate in the oyster restoration program, which provides instruction on oyster ecology and introduces students to a shipboard experience that includes taking water quality measurements, examining the internal and external anatomy of an oyster, taking spat counts, planting an oyster bar and working on restoration activities, such as bagging of shell for setting oysters.
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