Dorchester’s UMCES Announces Record
Horns Point Laboratory, Oyster Recovery Partnership, oysters, UMCES,1.2 Billion Oysters Added to Bay in 2013
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) oyster culture facility at Horn Point and its partners produced more than 1.2 billion oysters during the 2013 production season. This is the first time any oyster hatchery nationwide has produced more than one billion Eastern oyster spat in a single season.
“The success of this year’s hatchery production demonstrates that with the necessary infrastructure and support of our oyster restoration partners, the Horn Point hatchery and its new oyster setting facility are capable of producing the spat that these facilities were designed to produce,” said Horn Point Laboratory Director Mike Roman.
One of UMCES’ key partners, the Oyster Recovery Partnership, successfully processed and deployed more than 700 million hatchery-produced oyster spat to Harris Creek. The remaining 500 million spat were produced as part of a program designed to train watermen to produce oyster seed for use in their oyster farming operations and to enhance the public oyster fishery.
UMCES’s oyster cultivation facility at Horn Point is the largest oyster hatchery on the East Coast. It is a focal point for oyster restoration and research in Maryland and the region.
Article reprinted in part from UMCES. For complete story visit: www.UMCES.edu