Glenmorangie DEEP project deploys 6000 juvenile oysters

What is Native Oyster Restoration?

Native oyster populations have declined by 95% in the UK since the mid 19th century and this replicated across Europe. Populations everywhere have collapsed due to overfishing, pollution, disease and the introduction of invasive species. Oyster reefs are globally imperilled, with an estimated 85% loss worldwide. Restoration seeks to address this decline.

Why is this worth doing?

Oysters are fantastic marine creatures, an individual animal can filter up to five litres of water per hour.

They use their gills to both breathe and feed. They inhale water and sort the particles from the water column. Small hairs on their gills called cilia then migrate those particles down towards their mouths. Inedible particles are bound into mucus known as pseudo-faeces, which is rejected.

As a result of this activity, oysters draw all sorts of elements from the water column and deposit them on the sediments, which as a result improves water clarity. Oysters are therefore our seas’ most effective water filters.

But there is more to the story than just that. In addition, Oyster also provide habitat for other marine life. They create nursery habitat for fish and crabs and provide small animals shelter from larger predators.

In essence, oysters can be considered to be ‘Ecosystem Engineers’, and play a vital role in the protection and recovery of fragile marine ecosystems. In order to realise these benefits they require help and that is the driver behind all of the restoration efforts that are gaining traction.

The Glenmorangie DEEP Project

The aim of Glenmorangie DEEP Native Oyster Restoration Project is to restore a huge Native oyster reef to the Dornoch Firth, Scotland in front of the Glenmorangie Whisky distillery.

The DEEP project is one of the flagship projects of the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) that has been set up to help coordinate Native Oyster restoration efforts across Europe.

The Native Oyster & Shellfish Company Ltd is the key supplier of the Glenmorangie DEEP Native Oyster Restoration Project. Providing thousands of juvenile Native oysters for the project from their disease free site, close to the project site in Wester Ross, Scotland.

The 6K Deployment

The latest iteration of the project was the deployment of 6000 juvenile oysters supplied by the The Native Oyster & Shellfish Company Ltd, and these were successfully deployed into the Dornoch Firth in the 20th May 2021.

The deployment was led by scientists from Heriot Watt University, and the stock was laid down in several configurations. Each configuration has been designed to provide feedback that shall then be used inform the next stage of the project.

Moving forward the scientists shall monitor the oysters every six months. They then plan to increase the numbers to 200,000 within three years and to some four million, over around 40 hectares, in five years. At this stage, they believe the reefs will cover an area and density most likely to ensure a self-sustaining oyster population – replicating the numbers which would have existed before the species was wiped out in the 1900s.