Oyster Delivery 2024

The Coalition to Save Hempstead Harbor is preparing for the start of the community oyster gardening program. On July 16, 2024, CSHH received the spat-on-shell oysters grown out through the program from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County hatchery in Southold. The spat-on-shell oysters were distributed to cages in Tappen Marina, North Hempstead Beach Park, the Hempstead Harbour Club, and Sea Cliff Yacht Club.

Spat-on-shell oysters growing on a clam shell (7/16/24)

Volunteers at the four locations will work in teams to raise approximately 80,000 spat-on-shell oysters by maintaining the cages and tracking the oysters’ growth until they are all planted within a conservation management area in Hempstead Harbor at the end of the summer. There, they will continue to grow, filter water, and serve as a habitat for other species in the harbor. Once they are mature, the oysters grown through this program will be able to reproduce and continue to increase their population within the harbor.

CSHH staff and volunteers from the Hempstead Harbour Club putting spat-on-shell oysters in the cages (7/16/24)

In May 2024, divers from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County assessed the growth and health of oysters grown out by volunteers from the past two summers that were planted in Hempstead Harbor. They found that the oysters are healthy, had grown substantially, and showed no signs of predation.

Pictured right: oysters retrieved during the Cornell dive from the 2022 season (5/2/24)