ECF celebrates 5 years of Shellfish Restoration

ECF celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Port River Shellfish Restoration Project at an event for volunteers and supporters on Friday, January 29th.

The first meeting of the Project group was held on January 21st, 2016 and our Draft Project Plan 2016 indicates we had lots to learn about our local shellfish and outlines how we might approach restoration of the native oyster (Ostrea angasi).

Since then we’ve trialled

• Native oysters in baskets at 6 sites around the Port River (commencing May 2017)
• Native oyster spat in baskets at 4 sites around the Port River (May 2018)
• Small shellfish reef in inner harbour (Dec 2018) then extended it (Feb 2020)
• Second small reef near Portside Christian College (October 2020)

Other highlights include

• Australia Day Award in 2017, from City of Port Adelaide Enfield for Emerging Community Group
• First evidence of our native oysters spawning in January 2018
• Group attendance and presentation to the 19th International Conference on Shellfish Restoration at University of Adelaide, Feb  2018

Our future plans include

• Monitoring the heath of our reefs, including whether our oyster spat are surviving as juveniles into adulthood
• Extending our first reef into deeper water that will be cooler in summer