Five thousand native oysters have been returned to the waters of Chichester Harbour, marking a significant step in restoring this stock, secured in cages under the Chichester Harbour Conservancy public jetty at Itchenor by the Harbour Oysters team.
The project was joint funded by Chichester Harbour Conservancy and local charity Chichester Harbour Friends, with the oysters obtained frm a nursery site on the Pembrokeshire coast. These underwent a rigorous biosecurity process at Portsmouth University’s Institute of Marine Sciences where volunteers donated their time to scrub the oysters, ensuring that no invasive species or pollutants are released with them into the harbour waters.
For hundreds of years native oysters were abundant in Chichester Harbour. But native oyster populations across Europe have plummeted by 95% due to a variety of factors. Native oysters bring significant environmental benefits including for water quality – one oyster alone can filter up to 200 litres of water per day. They also remove nitrogen, sequester carbon and provide habitats for other marine life.
Harbour Oysters is the brainchild of local sisters Lottie and Poppy Johns, inspired to harness the power of nature to help clean up our harbour waters.
Following significant research and trials, last year they placed 4000 oysters in Emsworth Yacht Harbour.
Over the next few months, another ten thousand oysters will be placed at two further sites within Chichester Harbour along with further trial sites to inform future restoration work.
‘We are thrilled to see this project take root. As a key funder, Chichester Harbour Friends is committed to supporting projects like Harbour Oysters that have a direct, positive impact on local ecosystems. This collaboration with Harbour Oysters and Chichester Harbour Conservancy is vital to ensuring the sustainability and success of the project for years to come,’ said Heather Baker, chair of Chichester Harbour Friends.
As Harbour Oysters continues to roll out native oysters in cages within Chichester Harbour and beyond, there will be thousands of oysters under marine infrastructure like jetties and pontoons. In the wild, oysters live on the seabed, forming shallow reefs. This spring the Solent Seascape Project will undertake a large scale wild restoration of native oysters in Chichester Harbour, creating natural habitat on the seabed. A new native oyster reef has already been created on the River Hamble.
The native oysters in cages will play a vital role in supporting wild oyster habitat restoration work, as they release spat into the harbour waters, all of which has the potential to settle and grow into an adult oyster.
Harbour Oysters has plans to expand across other locations in Sussex and Hampshire, embedding community-based oyster restoration as a cornerstone of marine conservation efforts across the region.
‘We’re excited to install thousands more native oysters into Chichester Harbour and beyond. The science is clear, native oysters are a keystone species of a thriving marine ecosystem, vital to the health and connectivity of our harbour habitats,’ said Lottie Johns, founder of Harbour Oysters.
‘It has been a joy to work with and inspire so many from the local community in raising awareness of the special role oysters have, and I look forward to further phases of the project.’
