The students are conducting a senior project to help restore oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay. Oysters once filtered the Bay's waters but have declined drastically due to overharvesting, disease, and pollution. The students grow baby oysters, called spat, on collected oyster shells. They will monitor the oysters' growth and later transfer the adult oysters to protected reefs to help restore the natural filtering process. The students are asking for donations of used oyster shells to support spat growth, as existing shells are needed but not readily available. Without shell donations, oyster restoration efforts and the long-term health of the Chesapeake Bay are at risk.

1. Senior Project
Oyster Restoration Project
By: Kendall Winn, Megan Holley, Eli Oser

2. Facts about the Chesapeake Bay

3. It is the largest
Estuary in the
US
Once known
as the “Great
shellfish Bay”

4. An Estuary is a semi-enclosed body of water that
has a free connection with the sea

5. The bay is shallow
Average depth is 21 ft.
The deepest
spot is near Annapolis
MD: 174 feet

6. The Bay Provides:
Habitats (homes)
Food
Nursery (juvenile species)

7. Bay Organisms
The Bay is home to over 3600 living organisms!

8. The Bay area is home to over
15,000,000 people!
About 50,000
commercial
vessels enter
the Bay each
year

9. What about the Oysters?

10. Oysters Clean–ed
the Bay
Oyster REEFS
provided a
natural filtering
system and
protected many
juvenile species
85% of the reefs
are gone

11. Think about it!
1 adult oyster filters
about 50 gallons of
water in 24 hours
19 trillion gallons of
water in one week
use to be filtered

12. What Happened?
By the 2nd half of the
 By the 1920s,
20th century, the
dredging removed
remaining reefs
¾ of our oyster
were destroyed
reefs
by disease,
overharvesting
and pollution

13. So Why Collect Shells?
 SPATS (Babies)
 Baby oysters grow
on existing oyster
shells!
 Existing oyster
shells are not easy
to get and are not
free

14. Oyster Growth in a ‘Shell’
 Spats are grown in  Now they grow into adult
various research labs oysters and if lucky,
(VIMS) or by non- reproduce with other
profits existing adult oysters
 Vilegers (swimming
stage of the oyster)
‘sense’ a protein that
allows them to
recognize an existing
shell
 Once they receive a
signal, they begin
their voyage towards
it and attach for life

15. It all Begins
with AND Supporters

16. Oyster Restoration
Students participate in
Oyster Restoration by
monitoring the growth
of SPATS
CBF helps programs
find transfer spots for
the adult oysters
Students end their
project by transferring
the oysters to a
protected reef

17. Without Shells
 Without shells,
programs to grow
 Without shells, our
oysters will not Bay will not survive
continue  Without shells
 Without shells, oyster millions of other
reefs will continue to species that rely on
disappear oysters will die

18. Our Project

19. Drop Off

20. We NEED your SHELLS