Oyster Nursery Seeded in Preparation for Parade of Boats on Thursday, July 29

In preparation for our 6th Annual Parade of Boats, the Littoral Society restoration team delivered hundreds of thousands of oyster babies to our nursery on the Wildwood Avenue Pier in Ocean Gate, NJ.

The Parade of Boats, to escort the oyster babies to our reef site off Good Luck Point in Barnegat Bay, will take place on Thursday, July 29 at 11 a.m. Everyone is invited to join us on Wildwood Avenue Pier and anyone with a boat can join the parade.  

​Those who attend will get to look at oyster larvae growing on shell in our on-site spat tank, as well as learn about the life cycle of oysters, their history in New Jersey waters, and why our bays and estuaries benefit from their restoration. 

The spat tank (aka our oyster nursery) and reef are part of Operation Oyster, a Littoral Society project aimed at putting oysters back into New Jersey's bays and tidal estuaries.

Decades of pollution, accelerated by rampant development, have decimated New Jersey's natural oyster population. Oysters help keep water clean and and oyster reefs help protect the coastline. They are nature's water filters, each one is able to clean up to 50 gallons of water a day. Oyster reefs also serve as speed bumps for waves during storms.

Partners in the project include Jenkinson’s Aquarium, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Stockton University, ReClam the Bay, Monmouth University, Parsons Mariculture, and the Barnegat Bay Partnership. The Littoral Society’s Operation Oyster initiative also involves work in the Delaware Bay and New Jersey’s Two Rivers area, as well as the “Shuck It, Don’t Chuck It” shell recycling program.  

​For more information or to join the parade, contact Capt. Al Modjeski at 732-291-0055 or [email protected].