Along the shoreline from Bayville to Cold Spring Harbor, clusters of oysters, suspended in wire cages, are quietly growing into a new generation of shellfish that could help restore the health of local waters.
They are part of the North Shore Oyster Gardening Program, an initiative of the Oyster Bay-Cold Spring Harbor Protection Committee that has drawn hundreds of volunteers since its launch in 2017.
The program gives residents the chance to raise juvenile oysters in sheltered waters before they are transferred to sanctuaries managed by the Town of Oyster Bay. There they continue to grow, filtering the water and providing habitat for marine life.
Rob Crafa, coordinator of the protection committee, said the effort has surpassed all expectations.
“We started in 2017, and the impetus was as a way for residents to get their feet wet and hands muddy a couple of times a month, to engage in something that would benefit the harbor and raise awareness,” Crafa said. “The enthusiasm for oyster gardening is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
The committee began the program in Laurel Hollow, with support from local leaders, expecting to attract a handful of residents. Nearly 100 people responded to the first call for volunteers, forcing organizers to scale back the launch to a more manageable 30 participants.
This year, more than 100 volunteers worked at five community sites: Beekman Beach, in Oyster Bay; West Harbor Beach, in Bayville; the Laurel Hollow Village Dock; and Eagle Dock and Jennings Beach, in Cold Spring Harbor.
Since it began, the program has planted more than 600,000 oysters, with additional support from yacht and beach clubs and residents with private docks. The oysters are grown in mesh cages to keep them safe from predators, and monitored until they are large enough to survive in the wild.
Christine Suter, director of Friends of the Bay, said her organization supports the program with outreach and on-water logistics.
“The gardens are to help supplement any existing oyster populations in the body of water,” she said. “They also are great programs for outreach, to teach people about the importance of oysters and what they do for the environment, and how they filter water and create habitat for other creatures.”
The biological value of oysters goes far beyond their reputation as water filters. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, but the reefs they form are equally important. Oyster clusters create three-dimensional structures on the bay floor, providing shelter for fish, crabs and other species while stabilizing sediment and protecting shorelines.
To support that process, volunteers give what Crafa called “TLC” to the cages throughout the summer. Every two weeks, they clean algae and other organisms from the wire mesh, measure sample oysters and record the data for researchers at Adelphi and Stony Brook universities. The careful maintenance increases survival rates, ensuring that more oysters live long enough to reproduce.
The program has grown into a network of partnerships among local governments, nonprofits and research institutions.
The town recently designated 300 acres of Oyster Bay as an oyster sanctuary, where shellfish are protected from harvest. Volunteers from the gardening program help seed these areas, often working directly with scientists monitoring settlement and survival rates.
Claudia Kulhanek-Pereira, of Locust Valley, has been volunteering with her family for five summers, and now serves as a site leader at Beekman Beach. The work, she said, feels like a natural extension of her family’s love for the water.
“The water gives so much back to our families,” Kulhanek-Pereira said, “and we take so much from the water for our own enjoyment that it just felt so important to give back and to help restore the natural habitat.”
At Beekman Beach, 15 to 20 volunteers typically show up for each session. Everyone contributes at their own comfort level, Kulhanek-Pereira, said, whether wading into the water to retrieve cages, scrubbing them onshore or measuring oyster growth.
Her co-leader, Michele Pasqualina, said the process is straightforward but rewarding. After hatcheries grow spat-on-shell oysters — baby oysters that attach to recycled shells — they are distributed to the program’s cages in early summer. From then until September, volunteers clean the cages and measure growth until the oysters are ready for transfer to sanctuary sites.
“It’s more like garage cleaning, because they’re just going to get dirty again once they’re in the tidal cycle anyway,” Pasqualina explained. “But cleaning out any of the unwanted sea organisms from the cages, and then measuring the growth of the oysters every other week, is what we do.”
The results are starting to show. Researchers have documented natural “recruitment” in Oyster Bay — oysters are reproducing on their own, without direct seeding. That sign of sustainability is encouraging for Crafa and other organizers, who hope the efforts will one day restore the bay’s once-thriving oyster population.
The season concludes each fall with a celebratory dinner, a “shellebration.” Planning for the following season begins almost immediately, as hatcheries prepare juvenile oysters for another summer of community care.
The program’s organizers believe its true strength lies in the connections it fosters. The sense of community is evident every season, Crafa said. “People talk about the water quality benefits, but truly the benefits for our program are just community engagement and awareness,” he said.
For those who may be hesitant to participate, Pasqualina offered simple encouragement. “Come as you are,” she said. “You don’t have to know anything about this — just have a willingness to be there, to help, to offer whatever you can.”
Visit OysterBayColdSpringHarbor.org for more information on the program and how to support it.
