Wild oysters found—right here in New York Harbor

Wild oysters found—right here in New York Harbor

An exciting find at low tide! In late September, while conducting a wild oyster survey in the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, we encountered thousands of young-of-the-year oysters! These glistening bivalves—attached to rocks, bulkheads, and bridges—were only visible at very low tides. Unlike the oysters spawned in our hatchery and strategically placed at our oyster reefs, this discovery suggests that oyster larvae in NY Harbor found a hard surface to land and a protected spot to grow on their own! Since we started restoring oysters—12 years ago at the Harbor School—we have only seen three oyster sets this dense! 2011, 2018, and now, 2020. Even more encouraging? Each of these recruitment events was denser than the one before. To me, this is a clear sign that we are trending in the right direction. While we can't directly attribute these oyster offspring to the 47 million oysters that Billion Oyster Project has restored to date, we do know that the more oysters we restore, and the better water quality becomes, the more likely we are to see wild oyster populations rebound without human intervention! Thanks for reading, and being part of the Billion Oyster Project community! Pete Malinowski Executive Director