Five St. Mary’s College of Maryland graduates assisted with planting 85 bushels of oysters on a reef in the St. Mary’s River earlier this summer as part of a national Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR) program.
SOAR was created in late 2020 by the The Nature Conservancy and Pew Charitable Trusts and is aimed at helping to build and support oyster reefs by purchasing oysters from local growers that could not otherwise be used for sale. Since its inception, the Conservancy reports having deployed 5.6 million oysters in eight states.
In Maryland, the ongoing SOAR program has benefited the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries along with the many whose livelihood is deeply connected to the water.
Daniel Sweeny ’02, agriculture program director with the Nature Conservancy, led the SOAR Chesapeake Bay project. He and fellow alumnus Matt Kane ‘01, communications lead for the project, joined forces with St. Mary’s River Watershed Association Executive Director Emma Green Ewing ’18 to facilitate the project on the St. Mary’s River — one of two Maryland planting locations identified in collaboration with the Department of Natural Resources.
A five-acre reef site has been a focus area for the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association’s restoration efforts since 2013. Ewing said over the years, over 2800 reef balls and tens of thousands of bushels of spat on shell have been deployed. She said these efforts help clean the water and also increase the fish population for recreational and commercial fishing.
“We are very happy that the upper St. Mary’s River is an oyster sanctuary,” she said, adding that the river is unique in that the lower portion is a public fishery.
Sweeney explained that the oysters purchased from local growers for the SOAR project are diploid oysters, meaning they would be ready for reproduction this summer. The oysters planted, he said, help increase the spawning stock capacity of oyster reefs in the sanctuary, as well as provide new habitat for local wildlife, including blue crabs and striped bass (locally known as rockfish, Maryland's official state fish).
To load, move, deploy and monitor the roughly 25,500 oysters, Shorething Shellfish, locally owned and operated by oyster farmers and SMCM alumni Brian Russell ’08 and Mandy Burch ’01, answered the call.
Kane said the project location was a great opportunity to come back to St. Mary’s College but also to spread the word about the program. “Getting the word out about SOAR is not only a great opportunity to help people learn about the importance of oysters to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, but also to highlight the important role that oyster farmers are playing in its restoration."
