 Hi, good morning. My name is Sean Lowbury. I live in Coastal Mississippi in the Ocean Springs area And I am a volunteer for the oyster gardening program growing restoration oysters to be returned to the Mississippi Sound and new oyster beds well, I happen to be in a training class to Earn a Coast Guard captain's license. I'm retired Navy and I was a Navy ship captain back in the day and there were several Department of Marine resources Folks in the class also and I just heard through word-of-mouth about This program and it sounded really interesting to me And you know, I asked a lot of questions about it and and here I am I think a big one is just awareness of you know, what's going on with the oyster fishery and in the Gulf and In this area it it's tremendously diminished from what it has been, you know, many years ago and That that's caused by a lot of different problems overfishing pollution Miss management of dredging spoils, you know those are a few that I'm aware of that that really hurt the the fishery and I believe that it's from what I've read and what I've seen slowly coming back and slowly improving and One of the really cool characteristics of an oyster is that they're constantly filtering and and improving water quality in their own small way, so They're they're just a really beneficial animal and they the support life and and you know shelter and food for so many other Small animals like crabs and shrimp and fish and that that sort of thing Well, the the guidance that y'all give The gardeners is to to do the maintenance to check on the oysters every I believe it's seven to ten days and Based on my schedule and routine it worked out for me to do it once a week I usually do it on Saturdays and I spend early in the season maybe five to ten minutes a Week and then later in the season maybe up to 45 minutes or an hour So I would say on average probably half an hour a week. So it's really a minimal time and investment for me and The the work involves maintenance basically visual inspection Everything that y'all trained us to do looking for predators Giving the oysters a rinse to help keep you know mud and and sediment off of them Just to help help them be healthy and to keep growing and then I also take measurements To put into your database so that y'all can track Growth during the season Well, I just want to say I really enjoyed You know this effort. I love to volunteer love to give back to my community and For those that have access to salt water. It's just a really neat Undertaking and it takes very very little time I find it to be really really rewarding in the past few seasons. I've raised about 3,000 oysters per season and Knowing that I you know those oysters are going back on to new reefs that are you know helping the sound and helping you know restart These these oyster oyster reefs and oyster habitats, you know, it's just really rewarding to me During the health crisis It's also a wonderful activity that you can still do and be safe So I've just found it to be really really rewarding. It's also been fun to get other friends and neighbors involved with it And so I believe it's a tremendously valuable rewarding program And that there's a lot of potential for it to grow further. I think they're just a lot of folks out there We're still educating the public What it's all about and I think there's a lot of room for growth if there's you know interest or capacity for that in the future