In Belfast Lough, Northern Ireland, thousands of oysters are getting a second chance, and they're returning the favor by cleaning up polluted waters.
According to BBC News, Ulster Wildlife and Belfast Harbour have joined forces to restore oyster reef ecosystems that vanished more than a century ago.
Native oysters once populated the lough before excessive harvesting and pollution wiped them out around the 1900s. Typhoid outbreaks during that period were blamed partly on sewage-tainted shellfish, which poorer residents ate regularly.
Launching this restoration project took coordination with government agencies and required working through regulatory hurdles. Belfast Harbour's Simon Gibson called launching the effort "a bit of a process." Nothing like this had been attempted on Northern Ireland's seabed before.
Belfast Lough's water quality has suffered. Sewage and farm runoff now flow into the lough, and infrastructure upgrades that could address the problem have stalled amid funding shortages.
Government investigators are now looking into what they described as "serious degradation" of the waterway.
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The oysters offer a natural fix. These shellfish clean their surroundings by drawing water through their bodies and trapping particles. The project brought over 2,000 adult oysters from Scotland, along with 30,000 juveniles.
As the oysters multiply, they'll cluster into living reef structures on the seafloor. These formations do more than purify water. They shelter juvenile fish and crustaceans while buffering shorelines against waves. The reefs double as protected spaces where young sea creatures can grow safely.
Oyster nurseries now operate at four locations around the lough, raising young shellfish that may one day settle on the new reefs.
If you live near coastal waters, look into marine conservation groups in your area. Backing these efforts could help restore species that clean waterways and bolster ocean life.
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$200 or more 💰 "Oysters are a missing habitat, a missing species, that do fantastic things for biodiversity but also have some really fantastic supports for our environment," Dr Nick Baker-Horne, the marine conservation manager of Ulster Water, told BBC News.
He added that the project marks "a significant step forward in helping to restore this small but mighty ocean superhero."
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