Here at the Fishery we grow two types of oysters, Native and Rock or to give them their proper names Ostrea Edulis and Crassostrea Gigas. Native oysters are the the breed of oyster that originally came from our rivers, but they are also a more delicate oyster and over the years the native oyster stocks have been wiped out many times.
We are trying to restock the river with Native oysters, it is going to take a long time but well worth the investment, both in time and money. As we have said in a previous post about our Native oyster regeneration we have brought in Native oyster spat and placed them out in the river in cages in our nursery to grow. In order to keep the whole process within the Fishery we have built our own spatting ponds. These are big ponds fed with fresh seawater with a fountain to keep the water circulating and the oxygen levels up.
When the ponds were empty we placed lots of extra large Native oysters in each pond along with cockle shells for the spat to collect on. It will take a couple of years to see if this has been a success and we have managed to cultivate our own Native oyster spat. If it fails, well, during the summer months we will have two large swimming ponds with fountains to relax in!