The Blue Marine Foundation is a conservation organization that is dedicated to improving the health of the ocean by addressing overfishing.
One of its key strategies is to restore marine habitats, and the organization has recently been supporting a project in Chichester, England. As reported by the BBC, local volunteers supported by the foundation have been spending their time scrubbing 4,000 oysters in preparation for a major relocation that hopes to improve water quality in the harbor.
Oysters are great for improving water quality because they naturally filter out surrounding contaminants. Oysters can filter up to an impressive 150 liters of water a day and used to be found in abundance in the harbor before overfishing, disease, and pollution caused numbers to rapidly decline since the mid-1800s.
Scrubbing the oysters before they are relocated is important because it protects the existing oyster population in the marina from any pests or contaminants they may have on their shells. The volunteers worked for an entire day at the Institute of Marine Science Laboratory in Southsea to get the job done. Once they are relocated, it will be the biggest installation of oysters in Europe.
The Blue Marine Foundation has been involved in a lot of projects in the United Kingdom and across the rest of the world that help protect marine environments, from helping to protect and restore kelp forests that provide nursery grounds and habitat to a wide variety of ocean animals, to supporting fishermen in a just transition away from harmful fishing practices like bottom trawling.
This latest oyster project is one of four Blue Marine is involved in across the UK, with other projects aiming to establish oyster restoration hubs in Scotland, Wales, and a region in the northwest of England.
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"This is going to be the largest installation of oysters in Europe. That's really exciting, and hopefully it makes a massive impact," said Lottie Johns, who is co-leading the project with help from Blue Marine, per the BBC.
She added: "They're there, they're feeding and filtering, and they're breeding, and they can start to make a change."
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