 Okay, I think I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I want to make sure that we have plenty of time for the full presentation. Welcome everyone, thank you so much for joining us at today's community conversation. My name is Megan Steele. I'm a volunteer here at Sierra Club Maine and I will be facilitating today's webinar. I think that I'm pretty new to the main chapter of the Sierra Club but I know that these community conversations have been a really great way since the start of the pandemic for us to all come together virtually and hear from some really wonderful organizations in our community. Today we're really excited to have Caitlyn Cleaver, Jesse Batchelder, and Dot Kelly join us to talk about oyster re-frustration. So let me make sure I can change my slide. So we ask that you please keep your microphone on mute throughout the presentation to help with background noise. You'll see the microphone symbol located in the lower left of your screen as shown here. I know that we've all been on a lot of video calls over the last year but just to make sure that we cover the basics. If the microphone symbol is crossed through you're muted. Next to that you'll see a video camera symbol. You're welcome to stay on or be off video as you choose. We are recording this webinar so if you wish to not be seen feel free to turn your video off. And lastly we'll invite you to put any questions in the chat and I'll be monitoring the chat. So we'll have some time at the end of the presentation for Q&A. Next I want to acknowledge the land that we're on. So the Sierra Club Maine acknowledges Indigenous land and sovereignty. We are in the homeland of the Wabanaki, the people of the dawn. We extend our respect and gratitude to the many Indigenous people and their ancestors whose rich histories and vibrant communities include the Wabanaki, Malaseet, McMac, Pasamaquoddy and Penobscot nations and all of the native communities who have lived here for thousands of generations and what is known today as Maine, New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Sierra Club Maine is honored to collaborate with them Wabanaki as they share their stories and thanks to the Abbey Museum for their leadership in the colonization efforts in Maine. So it is my honor to introduce our guest speakers. Caitlin Cleaver has extensive experience working with Maine fishing communities and has done ecological and social science research with fishermen and aquaculturists through multiple projects. At Bates she teaches courses about coastal issues and manages research happening at the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area. She is also currently a PhD candidate at the University of Maine working to understand the potential for aquaculture to be a diversification opportunity for commercial fishermen. We also have Jessie Batchelder who is a research technician for the fisheries team at Monomet, an organization dedicated to using science and collaboration to improve the health of flyways, coastal ecosystems and working lands and seas. Jessie has spent her professional career working in the aquaculture field from both the commercial and research sides of the industry and we also have Dot Kelly. She is a member of the Thibsburg Conservation Commission and Thibsburg Land Trust. She has recently recently served on the Sierra Club Maine Executive Committee and as co-chair of the Sierra Club Maine Energy Team. With a long time enthusiasm for estuaries and as a former director of energy and environmental services for a major chemical company, she was pleased to take on the leadership of the Basin Oyster Restoration Project under the auspices of the Thibsburg Conservation Commission in January 2020. The Nature Conservancy has recently finished their initial restoration pilot project 2017-2019 in the Basin and requested and supported the transfer to the Thibsburg Conservation Commission. So with that I will turn it, I will stop sharing my screen and turn it over to them. Great thank you so much Megan and thank you for having us. We're really excited to talk more about our project today. Can everyone see my screen? Just a thumbs up if you are. Yes awesome fantastic. Okay so like Megan said we are going to talk about our project focused on oyster reef building in Pittsburgh and so from the bottom up the community-based approach to oyster reef restoration. And let's see my slide is not advancing. There we go. Okay so just a quick overview from me. We're going to talk a little bit about who we are and how we got involved in this project and then I will give you some background on oyster reef restoration, the benefits of it and why we are thinking the time is now for Maine to get involved with these efforts. Dot we'll talk a little bit about the history of the Basin oyster project and then Jesse will highlight some of our progress to date and the monitoring efforts that we've started doing this past year building on the nature conservancy's work in the Basin in 2017-2019. And then I'll talk I'll finish up with what we're planning to do from here on out in the next couple of months and years ahead. So I'll start. So as Megan mentioned my name's Caitlin Cleaver. I'm the director of Bates Forest Mountain Conservation Area at Bates College and I am incredibly interested in partnering with local fishermen and aquaculturists to help them answer questions that they have about the resources that they depend on. And so my role in the project is really trying to figure out the monitoring protocols and getting Bates students involved in the Pittsburgh community. And so this is work that I really, really value doing is bringing sort of scientific capacity to local communities. So I'm really excited to be a part of the oyster project. So Dot, you're muted Dot. Let me unmute. Thank you. Hello again. I'm Dot Kelly. It was wonderful to see some friendly faces on the Zoom call. Thank you so much for calling in. Thank you to the Sierra Club for hosting these. I think I like to say to know oysters is to love them and I think that community conversations is similar to know what we're all doing and seeing the passions that we have and understanding where people are coming from makes us a real community. And so I think of this effort focused on a sustainable community. Oysters are relatively a new crop for our working waterfront and our focus was how can we support the oyster farmers, as well as the community by bringing knowledge and conversation and assistance to it. And as one of the leaders, I've been most thrilled at having gathered this incredibly talented and interested group of volunteers. So we have about 10 people close in and I just like to say that anyone out there who's interested in being close to our project, you know, we welcome you if it's just to monitor what we're doing or to actually lend a hand. And I will pass it on to Jesse to introduce herself. Thanks, Dot. I'm Jesse Batchelder. I'm a research technician at Manomet working for the fisheries team. Manomet's organization, their headquarters are down in Massachusetts, but our fisheries team is based in Brunswick, Maine, and our work is mostly focused in the Gulf of Maine. And a lot of our projects have a close relationship with local fishers, aquaculturists, harvesters, other community partners. And so the basin oyster project was a nice link for us to get involved in areas that local communities want to work and want answers to questions they have in their backyards. And so Manomet's role in this project is focused more on the science side and helping with the monitoring efforts that are going on. Thank you. So oyster reefs, they were historically, you know, all throughout the U.S., basically the mid-Atlantic Gulf of Mexico coast and the west coast. And they, you know, this is, this figure here just shows different, different parts of the U.S. So the top pictures are from Florida and you can see that they can create these bars and then they also can be integrated into the vegetation. They can also be intertidal or subtitle. And historically, we harvested oysters both for eating, but also for building material. And so I love these pictures because I think they show sort of the scale of harvesting that was happening. And the technology for harvesting shifted over time. So initially, people were harvesting them by hand in the intertitle, but then they started dredging and that just made beds that were subtitled more accessible to humans. And so over time, we just had this significant decline in oyster populations throughout the U.S. And this picture, this figure shows that. So this is where we have data for oyster beds, historic oyster biomass. This is comparing today's biomass to historic biomass. And you can see that a number of the beds are pretty depleted. So less than 1% up here, you know, in Southern New England. And here along the Gulf Coast, the only one that is, you know, of 100% of the historic biomass is in Florida, Panhandle. And so you'll also notice that Maine isn't even on here. And I think that's in part because the species likely wasn't in Maine waters, except for a long time ago in geologic history when the ocean was warmer and when the sea levels were much higher than they are today. And so, you know, that's one reason why it's an interesting thing to be thinking about now is that ocean waters are warming. And so there's more potential for oysters to be naturally occurring in our waters, in our coastal waters here in Maine. But basically, we did a number on the species. And so there have been major efforts throughout the U.S. to rebuild oyster populations. And they were, initial efforts were really focused on rebuilding the populations for fisheries, for people to continue harvesting them. More recently, the effort has focused on the ecosystem services that oyster reefs provide. So this figure is from a report that basically shows the different ecosystem services that oyster reefs are able to provide. And you can see that for other species, they can provide shelter for crabs and snails and nursery habitat for juvenile fish so they can increase the local biodiversity in a particular area where this habitat is existing. They also provide a rich nutrient source for other species to basically feed on the waste material. And then they are able to improve the water quality. So oysters are filter feeders. So they remove excess nitrogen from the system, which can be really beneficial in areas where you have runoff occurring. And then they also reduce wave energy. And I don't know if any of you have heard of the term of living shoreline, but it's this idea that restoring coastal habitats like marshes, oyster reefs, etc. can reduce the risk of storm surge and wave energy that we're seeing from increased and more frequent hurricanes. And so this is thought of as an opportunity to basically make our coastlines more resilient. And they also stabilize the substrates so they can reduce erosion from that. So they're really important. They're really important systems that actually improve around them. And here's just a photo showing on the left, you know, sort of that increase of biodiversity in fish species because of the habitat that oyster reefs provide. And then the photo on the right basically is showing how an oyster reef can provide a buffer and an area of shoreline that can absorb extra energy in a system. And who benefits from this, right? So obviously shoreline property owners can benefit from the fact that these habitats can reduce erosion and also protect infrastructure from storm surge potentially recreational and commercial fishers both see benefits from increased biodiversity and just a healthier overall habitat from improved water quality. This can benefit nature enthusiasts who want to see increased biodiversity. And then even the construction workers. So this idea that, you know, living shorelines and oyster restoration is happening at multiple scales. So our project in the basin is really small scale, but there are very large scale efforts that are happening that require a lot of infrastructure and support. So there's the potential for, you know, these living shorelines to employ people doing that work. And so why Maine? So many of you probably have heard in the news that the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world's oceans. And basically the trend of warming is such that the Gulf of Maine is a hot spot. So we are seeing increasing sea surface temperatures since the 1870s. And this figure is from Chris Cornascus. I should learn how to pronounce his name correctly. But basically it's it's a heat map that's showing the darker red as higher sea surface temperature than the lighter red areas. And here is the Gulf of Maine right in here. And so we are seeing warming, which, as you all probably know, there are winners and losers to climate change. And so oysters actually prefer warmer waters and can grow more quickly. And so what we're seeing is potentially an improvement of habitat that is allowing for oysters to naturally occur in the Gulf of Maine in areas where they didn't before in coastal Maine waters, basically. Granted, ocean certification is a whole other issue for shellfish that I'm not going to get into today. The other thing that's happening, the other trend that's happening in Maine, which got touched on is this growth in aquaculture and this interest in oysters as a species to grow and to potentially diversify our working waterfronts. And so this figure is a little bit busy. But what I really want to draw your attention to are the medium blue bars. And that's the number of limited purpose aquaculture licenses, which is one form of getting an aquaculture lease over time. And so on the y-axis here, we have the number of active LPA licenses and on the x-axis is time from 2007 to 2020. And these blue bars here are oysters. And you can just see all I want you to take away from this figure is sort of this growth in oysters. And this is a relatively small scale, but I think it really illustrates this increased interest in oyster aquaculture here in Maine. And so aquaculture has been somewhat contentious in certain communities, but it also has been embraced in others. And so I think we're seeing the potential to use a restoration project that's focused on the benefits that oysters can provide to the system as an avenue to potentially improve community relations around oyster aquaculture. So down the road, we are hoping to use what they call the uglies in the oyster aquaculture industry, which is basically oversized oysters that don't make it into the white tablecloth market or the half shell market. And so we're considering using those castoffs, which would otherwise, I don't know what I don't know exactly what farmers would do with them. But basically, they're taking up space on their farm and they may not want them anymore. So we're hoping to take those and adopt them for our oyster restoration efforts. So we see this sort of symbiotic relationship between oyster reef restoration in Maine and this growth in the aquaculture industry. And so there's potential to really have a connection and engage these oyster farmers in ecological restoration efforts. So with that, I'll turn it over to Dot to give you an update on how the project started in Pittsburgh. Thank you, Caitlin. That was a great overview. It's hard without feedback to know exactly what to say, but this is a well-known hurricane hole for sailors on the New Meadows River called the basin. Hopefully many of you are familiar with it because it's a beautiful, beautiful spot. The town of Phippsburg was lucky enough in 2007 to have the Hatch family donate almost 2000 acres of land to the Nature Conservancy. And it includes five miles of shoreline around this basin. And the Nature Conservancy has been a delightful partner for the town. They did a number of restorations, one of which included looking to restore the beneficial shellfish into the basin. So they did decide to do a basin mostly focused on oyster shellfish project. You can see the cover of their three-year study that was done by Amanda Mosier. And they took learnings from other restoration projects throughout the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico and applied it to Maine, which had historically not had oysters in this area. As Caitlin mentioned, in geologic times, when waters were warmer, oysters could spawn naturally. But the basin has been too cold for typical oysters. In the 1950s, a European oyster project was started in the basin to have European oysters, blondes, naturally spawn. And they do because they tend to spawn starting at 60 degrees Fahrenheit and up. And the American oyster really needs 70 to 75 degree water to spawn and make babies. So their oyster project looked at taking spawned oysters, which means that the females shoot out their eggs and the males shoot out their sperm on that nice warm summer day or in a hatchery under sort of forced conditions the same. And then they form an eyed larvae. The eyed larvae is bacteria-sized and can actually swim. It has little cilia. And that eye goes away from the sunlight. It grows a foot and it attaches. And the oyster basically attaches for life to other oysters, to concrete erosion walls. You've probably seen them on various pilings or on a drop of sand. And then the oyster is going to be there basically for its lifetime attached to that small substrate. So the project and what we've continued to do is to get those eyed larvae from a hatchery or slightly larger oysters, possibly two millimeters or four millimeters long, a quarter of an inch long, and then try to grow them out without having too many of them die. That's the hope. What the TNC did is they settled them on to sort of stalactite one foot by one foot concrete blocks that looked like stalactites or stalagmites, whichever one grows up from the bottom. And there were oysters on them. They didn't have very good success because with the oyster that small and with such a thin shell, there was either predators that reduced their number or tunicates. But for the most part, we have been able to show that the green crab, the invasive green crab, just is voracious at eating smaller oysters. So I would say that the scientific side of what we're doing is to try to understand why aren't the oysters surviving from a small size to a large size and also how can we protect them and know more about the spawning to be able to actually have a successful oyster bed in the basin. And so we have learned that if you put those small oysters into polyethylene bags that look like tic-tac-toe, you have greater than 95% survival. So the water is very healthy for them. They love the water. They grow beautifully. It's really a matter of predator control. So our group started in 2020 after the Nature Conservancy had finished their work and wanted us to continue. And we have about 10 people focused as Caitlin said on a number of projects for this year, which include developing education for students. We just had 59 Wayne Fleet fourth and fifth graders to be able to show them oyster science and have them walk an oyster farm and also do a cleanup with the MITA organization to give them an outdoor classroom experience that is science and technology, education and art. We've also met with neighbors, so some more education for educating the public about the basin oyster project, but also how something new can be managed so that all of the involved entities, whether it's neighbors or farmers or other harvesters like Lobstermen, can feel that the project is a benefit and not a difficulty to them. So I will turn it on to Caitlin to go over what are our questions. Great. Thanks, Dot. So as Dot already mentioned, we're really interested in this being a pilot project for understanding if oyster reef building is possible in Maine. And if so, which we're hoping it will be a success, is what are the effects of the oyster reef in terms of improving the biodiversity as well as what sort of reef structure and habitat provision is happening around the reef. And then what are the oyster dynamics? Are these oysters able to spawn as Dot mentioned? What is their growth rate and how many survive? As Dot mentioned, we have a ton of green crabs at this particular site. So we're right now figuring out exactly what size we need to put out the individual oysters to hopefully protect them from green crab predation. And then we're also interested in can we see a difference in the water quality before and after oyster reef restoration efforts. And on the sort of community focused outreach education side, we would like to synthesize lessons learned from our efforts and create guidance documents for other communities about how to do this work. So we did have to go through the aquaculture leasing process to get permitted to actually put things into the water. And so, you know, that's just an interesting sort of application of aquaculture is, you know, we're using it for restoration purposes. So maybe we'll come up with guidance documents for the state on how to sort of make that a little easier for community groups that are interested in this or, you know, other sort of lessons learned from that. And so Jesse is going to give us a little update on what we've been monitoring to date. Thanks, Kate. So you've heard about, I'll start with the green crabs, since we've heard about those a bit from Dot and Kate already. And if you've spent any time on the coast in this area, turning over rocks or playing in tide pools, you've probably seen green crabs. They are an invasive species, but they've been around for a while. They were first introduced into the US in about the early 1800s, probably through ballast water, which if you haven't heard of that, ships, when they're transporting goods, they'll take on water to help stabilize the boat. And then when they get to port, they'll empty out that water. Anything living in that water is also transporting. And so that's likely how green crabs and how a lot of other invasive marine organisms have found their way all across the world. And so green crabs have been here for a while. They're not new, but they are causing some pretty harmful effects in this area. They're a big predator, not just oysters to mussels, soft shell clams, snails. They also compete with a lot of our native crab species in this area, rock and Jonah crabs in particular. And so we've talked to you've heard a little bit that oysters, when they're small, they're a lot easier for green crabs to get into. So that's if you can grow them to a bigger size, they likely don't, the green crabs aren't able to eat them. And mussels, there's been a huge decline in intertidal mussel populations. And that's one of the big reasons for that is because of green crabs, as well as a decline in soft shell clam landings, which has really changed that commercial harvest species. And so for our green crab surveys, we are building off of a protocol that has been published by Dr. Mercer MacMahan, who is the director of fisheries at Manimett. And so this is a standardized protocol that's being used in a bunch of different sites, not just at the basin. And so at Manimett, we've been using this survey since 2017 at sites throughout kind of the mid-coast main area from Yarmouth, more on our southern end, up through the Damascotta region. And then we also have, because this is a published protocol, there's other groups that are using this survey at other locations as well. There's students at the University of Southern Maine and the College of Atlantic that have also been using this survey. So it's great to be able to compare results, not just over time at a single site, but also to compare between sites. And so these surveys are conducted during the field season, which is generally April to November, but depending on whether in Maine, sometimes that can get shortened. And they're done at low tide, and mostly we're trying to get abundance and density data. So we sample one square meter, and we do 10 of these samples at every site. And this is using this survey at the basin allows us to see, look at the abundance at the basin to get a sense of what the green crab population is here and how dense it is and what that threat is to the oyster reef that's being constructed. And then also to add to our long term data set at other sites. And in addition to looking at green crabs at these sites, we're also looking at the density of native crab species and also the Asian shore crab, which is another invasive species. And that's a little newer to this region, and that is likely come up with warming waters. And so then some of the other surveys that we're doing, we're also looking at water quality. And like the green crab surveys and all of our monitoring efforts here are really trying to use established protocols that they can they're not just specific to our site that they can be looked at in a larger context in the region. And so for our water quality sampling, we're using the Kennebec estuary land trust protocol, which they've been really working to implement in areas throughout the Kennebec region. And it's really being it's a great tool that citizen scientists can use and to help develop the get the community engaged in looking at the water quality and what understanding why is this important. And this is also their protocol and then this is also building on data that the friends of Casco Bay have been collecting. And so there's a pretty long term data set out there already, which is great to be able to look at change over time, especially with how fast the waters are warming and changing in the Gulf of Maine here. And so everyone's probably heard about salinity dissolved oxygen is just an important tool to look at how much oxygen is in the water and it is very important for aquatic organisms to be able to survive. So that's a really important parameter for us to be looking at as we're trying to grow oysters. And then the pH is important as waters are warming we're seeing decreasing pH and you may have heard of ocean acidification. And so that's really an important it's important for shellfish in particular because of how they build their shells. And so it's a lot harder for shellfish to develop the calcium carbonate in their shells with a lower pH. And so that's something that's really interesting to look at changing over time and that could have real detriment to the shellfish industry here in Maine both wild commercial and any restoration work that we're trying to take on. And then the other one that maybe people aren't familiar with as much would be turbidity which looks at the amount of suspended sediment in the water. And so that can block light it can also if there's a lot of suspended sediment it can carry contaminants. And so for filter feeders such as oysters that's an important parameter to look at as well. And then some of the other monitoring that we're looking at is also looking at substrate mapping. And so when you're building an oyster if you're adding something to the bottom of the ocean surface that wasn't there before. And so we want to be able to look at how can we gauge what was there and what was there before we start and what is there after we start building these reefs. And so we're looking when we do these substrate mapping surveys we're looking at both what is the substrate so is it mud is it cobble is it ledge is it sand is it shell hash. And then also looking at what the biodiversity is. Kate mentioned that oyster reefs have been shown to increase biodiversity and so looking at what species are living in this area before we start and are we seeing those same species after seeing more are we seeing different types of species are all questions that we're hoping to get out of this substrate mapping. And so we haven't started the formal substrate mapping process yet because we'll wait until we are close to actually putting oysters out on the site and building this reef which will hopefully happen next spring early summer. And so it's important to do the kind of pre restoration survey as close to that time period as possible so that we can see like how much sediment was deposited over the winter and be able to take that into our pre restoration map. But we have gone out onto the site just to kind of do some more informal site scoping dives which was really great to get underwater. All of these are all of these are being conducted through scuba surveys. And so it was really cool to for me to be out and see what was there and see the habitat and just get a better way of the land and it's pretty cool when you only are looking at an area from the surface and then you get to dive under the water and it's truly a whole new world. So that was really cool and I'm looking forward to getting back down there once we start doing some of the more formal substrate mapping surveys next year. Great thank you Jesse. So looking ahead for this winter we are going to put out a couple of test plots of oysters to see how they do. So it's been this balance of you know Dot mentioned we got these eyed larvae and like growing them up and taking really good care of them but not wanting them to succumb to green crabs so we haven't put them out. So we've actually, Dot has become our in-house oyster farmer and so she's been growing them in floating bags on the surface of our LPA. And then so we want to put a few out and see what happens. So we're going to put two plots of about 200 oysters each of varying sizes which we're going to measure tomorrow morning and one we're going to put in predator control net and the other we're just going to leave open to the environment and then come spring we'll see how they did and how many survived. We also are going to apply for two additional limited purpose agro-culture licenses at different sites within the basin and the idea is that we'll be able to test different site characteristics and hopefully be able to say something about site selection for oyster reef development. So the location where we are now is sort of near the entrance of the basin and open to the new meadows and the ocean and so these other sites will be farther in the basin theoretically a little bit warmer so we might see some natural spawning potentially at these other sites. Also this winter clearly we are not the first to be doing this type of work so we're going to dig a lot more into the existing restoration literature that's out there and glean some best practices. One thing I have heard consistently is that restoration success and planning actually is really site dependent and site specific so we'll take lessons from elsewhere and try and adapt them to our particular site and see what happens and just like that led me right to the next bullet point we'll develop a site specific restoration plan and as Dot mentioned at the beginning education and outreach is really important to this project and we've got a Bates senior who's going to develop some fifth-grade curriculum for us which we hope to implement with the local school within the next year 2022 not 2021 we're rapidly approaching the end of 2021 which is a little scary. So in the summer of 2022 we're going to continue the water quality and green crab population monitoring as Jesse said we'll actually do the baseline substrate mapping as well as biodiversity surveys and also put out some settlement plates which are a way of basically determining larval abundance doesn't tell you much about where that larvae came from but it'll give us a presence absence and abundance or density of larvae of oyster larvae and probably other things that are in the area so we'll put those out in June and monitor that monitor them throughout the summer and see if we're getting any settling oysters we will prep the sites for planting the oysters again doing that substrate mapping to get that baseline we also have talked about doing green crab predation experiments to find that size refuge above which the oysters are protected from green crab predation and we will obviously continue our outreach efforts so if you're local in Maine do feel free to reach out to us and come see the site you can also email us and we'll add you to our newsletter list which we have our first newsletter hopefully coming out in next week or in early November and with that we will take your questions thank you and thank you and I'll flag that we will also be sending a wrap-up email with that email address for everyone to have to sign up for the newsletter but thank you all that was a really amazing presentation does anybody have any questions I actually did have a question oh Becky did you and Becky is coming through with a question thank you sorry um I just was wondering what's your funding looking like how are you being funded I can take that we were lucky enough with the nature conservancy that when the conservation commission took over this project they did give us some initial funding we've been somewhat self-funded where people who are doing boats and other things just offer their their services and we have applied for a grant which would be just under twenty thousand dollars and you know we're hoping that that comes through the conservation commission in Phippsburg does accept donations for this project the basin oyster project I do know that we've gotten one one donation that way but you know as we continue maybe more will come in and we will continue to look at grant funding Nancy did you have a question I'm curious about where you're raising the little tiny larvae and and have you figured out yet when they're big enough to have some protection against the green crabs hi Nancy so great to see you I'll take that one so we are looking at a lot of different things typically this is about the smallest grid size that's commercially available so once you get an oyster that's big enough to not slip through that grid a little less than a quarter of an inch you can put them out there two mil bags are well known sometimes you put a two mil bag which is thin inside a bigger mesh bag there's also mesh though available that's dramatically smaller and this spring summer we'll be looking at and there's spat bags that are similar when can you switch them over we were growing our eyed larvae onto oyster shell so you put aged oyster shell so the oyster shell is a big platform and maybe 15 or 20 oysters would settle on it just teeny tiny dots that you'd have to look under a microscope to see it first but then they grow bigger but since they're sitting on a big shell they're not going to slip through anything so that's actually from our from our findings we can do that within a bait barrel you saw a couple of slides with bait barrels in them so we have the bait barrel aerated and we're changing the water pretty frequently but you have to make sure you're not changing it when the oysters are still swimming around so there's that 10 days of this of the settling and then it's important to relatively quickly get them out into the natural environment it seems that with temperature and with other things that happen we do filter the sea water that we're using so there's nothing bigger than a micron because at their teeny size there the tiny animals that will eat them will get through the mesh so it is a bit of a balance but we find after a month they're ready to go out into the regular water in bags so your job is moving them from one place to another when they can't that's right but keeping them alive all the time you know you're have you fed them when they're in the bait barrel we actually use oyster food that's from an algae that's specially prepared to be to be good for them i love it quite a science thank you living and learning right all right Kathleen i think you're next hey everybody sorry i was late i caught the last half an hour this is really impressive work um Kathleen Layton i work for the coastal management program at DMR i'm very interested in this project um i have three questions actually if i should talk to somebody offline um just let me know um what kind of permits did you need from DEP where did you get the um was it oyster shell right that you're building where did you get the shells and did you have problem with sediment in them and then what do you think is the potential for oyster reef restoration in Maine if that question makes sense i know i'm on a a team for the living regional living shorelines pilot that TNCS funded in casco bay and in the other states they're obviously doing reef reconstruction and using reef balls and things like that that we tried to stay away from because we didn't think we would get permits for them when we took the project over from the nature conservancy they had gone through some of the permitting for the reef ball or these stalagmite plots that they had as far as the shell that was this area shell that was um cleaned and aged a year outdoors before being used uh in those experiments we're actually not going further at this point with eyed larvae we are looking at um using just small hatchery uh shell so there wouldn't there isn't going to be additional substrate um utilized and we're focused on really spawning at the lpas and investigating whether we can capture the spawn whether the spawn can survive naturally otherwise um and i'm not sure i hit them all but we'd be thrilled to engage with you you're just this is really an outreach you know i think that as opposed to being the best scientists we're just trying to say that on a local level we can take help and information and questions and concerns from all parties and let it be known that we're we're trying to find the more perfect solution that can i just chime in really quickly um i the permitting right now is just through dmr's limited purpose aquaculture license which they made they streamlined that process so army core of engineers also um reviews those applications um i don't believe de p gets involved but i could be wrong i know that they tried to make it like interagency coordination um with some of these but we are going through the aquaculture process um okay that's really interesting to me yeah because um in the we ended up um getting we submitted information for a full nerpa permit because the army core was requiring more information for living shorelines so you know it's just ironic if you keep something above the highest annual tide they just you know they care about if you're doing the work uh you know yeah like because this is only 400 square feet right now you know okay i wonder if that that might also be like yeah for a lease that would have gone under greater review um and we're actually working title just to try and protect the oysters from potential freezing um at expo you know so that they're not exposed at low tide right but yeah we should definitely we should definitely talk um thank you and yeah yeah all right perfect and then i think alison also has a question yeah hi um actually one of the questions um was asked by kathleen about where the shell came from this is really interesting um that had the um the spawn oysters are you getting those from mook so we get them as the eyed larvae so in other words they've been raised they've been spawned at a hatchery they've waited 10 days the fertilized egg in order to become an eyed larvae and then they they had sold it to the nature conservancy and we for the next two years continued to buy them at that stage as well as some seed which are the seed between one and six millimeters long we were buying the smaller size thanks and that was not mook that was that was the other part of your question we were doing it from miscongas bay which had a an up well or right in the new meadows river okay all right that makes sense and alison thank you so much for being our representative you have been fabulous and your ability to be so reachable is kind of what this community effort is trying to emulate so you're good even though i haven't been down there yet we're going to do that this fall so thanks for your work any other questions things that we should be looking for that's that's very helpful you know things you've wondered about but haven't seen haven't heard the answer to i'm having problems with my mute today what is it's not a monday either is it oh and my question was uh so i just want to let folks know if you don't know that we had a pilot oyster shell recycling program with the portland restaurants you may have seen it was a pre-covid ocean a plate to ocean was our logo and we got way too many shells and it was this was a partnership where they were cured and at a you know solid waste facility but then when we brought them to worton point there was a a lot of sediment and some debris in it and the clamors got runs with clamors got really upset and called the dp to the site so there was a problem with that but um i forgot what my other oh yes eelgrass are you is there eelgrass there and are you interacting with eelgrass we're very curious sites do not have eelgrass uh that's been documented or that we've seen okay because we're interested in the interaction between eelgrass and aquaculture okay and understanding that like in some places in the dam or scott of their coexisting just fine so um yeah if any if you notice anything like that i i think um marci nelson would love to hear about that great you're not the same dot kelly you still have ensoco are you no that's okay okay it's also an overachiever Becky i think you also had a question um yes i was just curious you mentioned green crabs and and what you do about them they are certainly a problem everywhere and my son is a lobster man and he's hauling up green crabs um in his traps all the time and he tends to stomp on them but um you know is there some other how are we going to get what it's what can we do to increase the um the effort on green crabs do you have any suggestions i i didn't hear what you're specifically we're doing to eradicate them besides mesh size yeah that that's a great comment um and so i mean trying to eradicate green crabs is a hefty goal for sure um some of the other work that manament's been working on outside of this basin project is trying to create a market for green crabs um so that we're at the point where green crabs are likely here to stay um and what can we do to try to benefit from them and how can fishers and harvesters who are seeing uh their soft shell plant soft shell clam populations being decimated by green crabs or uh lobster fishers who are pulling them up in their traps what are ways that they can benefit from them um and so we've been doing a bunch of work with trying to create a soft shell green crab industry here in Maine um and out of all of our projects that's the project that's been hit the most from the pandemic because we relied on so many partnerships with chefs um to add this product to their menu um and try to attract it's a new new market new product for to get consumers interested in um but what we did do was pretty successful on a small scale and um chefs loved being able to work with them uh people loved eating them at the restaurants there's some really creative dishes that came out of that um and so that was taking the soft shell crab when they're molting which is only part of the season and um unlike blue crabs we haven't uh found a way to tell exact have an easy way to tell when green crabs are going to molt we rely on some kind of uh somewhat hard to distinguish signs on their shell once you get a hang of it you can understand but it does take a little bit um to get your eye trained to those um but we've also been working with um the humane food lab um to develop some uh green crab fish sauce uh some stocks that have also um showed some promise so that's a really cool uh other products to add to the market um other people are using them in compost um fertilizer uh there's also um someone's using them in dog food actually um and so other markets that at different scales having a higher value soft shell product at the mark and then at the top and then lower value um products down at the bottom but gives um some market to uh fishermen and people out on the water that uh could benefit from this species and we have found that fishing them out does did change the relative density of the green crab we didn't get rid of the green crab but whereas before we started to fish them out they were everywhere it was almost a horror film and very aggressive on your ankles etc and um as Jesse mentioned we both composted and one of our uh shellfish members had about 20 traps total 60 in the greater Phippsburg area and did have a low value market where he was able to sell his green crabs too so it was somewhat worth his effort and that's the answer is to make fishing out the green crabs you know economically viable for uh the shellfish harvesters actually I was going to add to uh what Jesse said I have a um a student at UMF Eva Fisher who's been working with Manomet on um trying to turn this into a market and I don't know Jesse whether you know this or not but apparently they are going to serve green crabs at the UMF dining hall at some point this fall and see how that goes yeah I uh I heard about that and um my boss Marissa who's also part of this project she's at Wellesley College today where they're doing um some green crab uh dishes in their dining hall down there as well so it's uh cool to see uh different things that Chester coming up with I had some green crab dip the other day at an event which was really good so there's a lot of different uses for it it does just take a little uh creativity um and willingness for someone to try something new that they may not have had before isn't it still the that nobody's offering to buy them at a price that makes it viable to collect them and I in in terms of the recipes I know a while ago wasn't humane I remember them talking about um green crab empanadas and they were testing them at the humane nutrition facility with students and they wanted the results I remember that on the empanadas was they wanted more green crab filling there wasn't enough filling so what's the are they the only person who are now doing experiments on um food products and is the price still the issue and I'm seeing the end um sure was there something else Kathleen did I cut you off no I'm seeing we have to end I'm over so just briefly um the for the soft shell crab market fishers were getting a really good price for that but they cancel all as a soft shell so the idea that if the soft shell crabs they can get a great price for and then having other markets it's a lower price but it still is um somewhere that they can utilize this product and it probably wouldn't be for fishers to solely be green crab fishers but if they're already out setting traps or out digging um we've done some work and to show that it is a easy and a affordable kind of way to diversify a bit thank you and then I wanted to mention um I saw Jim put a comment or a question in the um chat so I don't know if that's something we can quickly touch on and then we will also like include some you know follow-up information in our follow-up email so hopefully if people have more questions they can um get answers that way I believe it was a Vibrio question Caitlin or Jesse do you feel you can uh talk to Jim's question I think Jesse might know more about Vibrio than or do we want yeah a little bit although I'm definitely not an expert at all um um Vibrio's temperature is such a big um factor for that um and uh especially out west where there a lot of the oysters aren't uh subtitled they're intertidal and the exposure time um of keeping them cool is kind of the biggest factor there up in Maine um I am not aware of any uh Vibrio impacts at this point but I could be totally wrong so feel free to correct me Kate if you know something else oh MSX is also another oyster disease that people are concerned about so definitely public health is highly involved in aquaculture um and they're really strict about like movement of different size product and whatnot to try and contain disease outbreaks um within a particular water body when possible so they take it very seriously the basic area is open at this point without any um plan because uh I think the the DMR if there is an area of difficulty then there's management plans that you have to follow to be even more careful with with your oysters. Jim did you have a quick comment I saw your what you typed in the chat but right yeah I've been part of this national Sierra Club group of uh aquaculture people from across the country and the the west coast people have been very involved for like 25 30 years in fighting aquaculture out there and they've had their necks into it like horror stories of things happening mostly with you know salmon pens but also you know I have not looked in that much because I've uh to the shellfish but out there they say way you better pay attention because there's a lot of cautions to it and I don't know what they all are but you know as far as I know they were trying to put a big oyster farm and it's like a dungeonist reserve and people are really fighting against it um in a in a wildlife preserve there and you know things with entanglements plastics and viruses and spreading disease and I guess the cautionary is always everything's fine when it's small you know how big you get these and when you show to me these growth curves that's more more more I'm just a deep ecologist who always like more is great until it's not. Jim I think you you are hitting on attention that main attention that main needs to like reckon with now um and because we are getting pressure as a state to develop larger larger scale aquaculture projects um and I'm not sure I mean I'm not I I also am nervous about that you know um so I think it's definitely something to be watching um and and I'm not sure yeah I don't know it's definitely definitely a conversation that's happening amongst sort of practitioners about like what's you know what kind of aquaculture sector do we want and like I agree with you industrial scale pretty much anything isn't great for the environment tends not to be great for the environment um and so I think it's definitely something we should be watching right you know just certain viruses came from Norway with salmon that weren't here right yeah and so you can start like spreading around like biosecurity concerns and things that start breaking out into the ecosystem that weren't there um and I guess it's just cautionary and main main's pretty good um they we aren't allowed to grow any species that don't naturally occur here um we uh the state has like zones between which shellfishes like shellfish can't be transferred you know there's boundaries like regionally um even maybe a smaller spatial scale than regionally um that they adhere to there's and then um you can only buy oyster seed from main hatch any seed actually cohog oysters from main hatcheries you can't buy them from the south the idea being that that could limit vector you know a vector of disease spread so there there's yeah I mean there's there are things in place to try and prevent some of those things um but but yeah there's a lot of growth happening right now in the filter industry um and I think like you touched on not all species are created equal like finfish is different than shellfish and kelp and sea weeds but the scale matters too so yeah yeah thank you yeah well I want to thank you all for attending this has been a delightful opportunity for us to hear from each other too yeah I want to also thank you all for your presentation and for everybody who came um and just you know to stay in touch with Sierra Club Main on our social media and then also quickly do my due diligence and do a plug for our next community conversation which which is next week no it's November 9th I guess sustainable food by default with Katie Cantrell of Better Food Foundation um so yep that's I've done my duty perfect and thank you all for coming thank you so much for this really interesting presentation and we will send a follow-up email um with the email address to sign up for news your newsletter perfect for confirmation all right thank you everyone thanks again bye-bye