Wild oysters—right here in New York Harbor

In late September, I conducted a wild oyster survey. This adventure to find naturally recruited oysters led to the discovery of thousands of young-of-the-year oysters! These glistening bivalves—attached to rocks, bulkheads, and bridges—weren't in the Chesapeake or along the coast of Long Island, but right here in New York Harbor, mostly in the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.

Since we started restoring oysters—12 years ago at the Harbor School—we have only seen three oyster sets this dense! 2011, 2018, and now, 2020. Even more encouraging? Each of these recruitment events was denser than the one before. To me, this is a clear sign that we are trending in the right direction.

While we can't directly attribute these oyster offspring to the 47 million oysters that Billion Oyster Project has restored to date, we do know that the more oysters we restore, and the better water quality becomes, the more likely we are to see wild oyster populations rebound without human intervention!

Thanks for reading, and being part of the Billion Oyster Project community!