Tampa Bay Hosts Oyster Summit

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 100 8th Ave SE in St. Petersburg, will host an Oyster Reef Restoration Summit March 14 and 15. The goal of the two-day workshop is to convene all those actively pursuing or contemplating oyster restoration and establish a vision for the recovery of Florida's oyster fisheries, according to Bill Arnold, Ph.D., research scientist at FWRI. The conference is co-sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The meeting will include talks on oyster status and distribution, ecosystem benefits, reef restoration, construction and permitting, and assessment and evaluation. The fee to attend is $25, which includes meals and materials. Individuals involved in oyster restoration are also invited to make 15-minute presentations on their projects, and may also submit short abstracts to be considered as presenters on other conference topics.

FWRI recently completed a comprehensive mapping of oyster reefs in Tampa Bay for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

’ÄúThere are a lot more reefs in Tampa Bay than people realize,’Äù said Arnold, but most of them are degraded. And while there are fewer oysters in Tampa Bay today than in some other parts of the state, the local population is nonetheless significant. ’ÄúWe might expect to find 300 live oysters per square meter on a reef in Tampa Bay, but you could get double or triple that in Apalachicola or in South Florida’Äôs Ten Thousand Islands,’Äù he adds.

While portions of lower Tampa Bay are ’Äúconditionally approved’Äù for shellfish harvesting, they are closed because of the potential for bacterial contamination.

To register for the oyster summit or for an agenda, contact Laura Geselbracht at lgeselbracht@tnc.org.