A new drone-centric method could lead toquicker and easier oyster restoration on the Texas Coast amid agrowing need across the Texas Coast.
On June 12, oyster harvesting company Jeri's Seafood worked alongsidePalacios Marine Agriculture Researchto release one million baby oysters into East Galveston Bay on privately leased areas using an agricultural drone. The tiny oysters were spread across five acres in a matter of 20 minutes.
The hope is that, given four to six months, the oysters will grow big enough to harvest. If it works, Justin Woody, vice president of Jeri's Seafood, said using the drone to drop oyster seeds could be a game changer for oyster restoration.
"We’re hopeful that it’s successful and that it works and it adds another tool in the toolbox to help oyster restoration efforts in Texas, whether it’s through a harvestable commercial setting or a non-harvestable reef," Woody said.
Woody said the entire Texas coast has seen a decline in oyster populations for a multitude of reasons, including Mother Nature, harvesting, or man-made diversions such as damming up a river, which he said can change the habitat and be deadly for oysters.
"Now there’s a big push to ‘How do we mitigate that problem, how do we get our populations back up?' And this isn’t the cure-all, but if it works and it’s effective, it’s another tool in the toolbox to help with [restoration]," Woody said.
According to Woody, there's a possibility this was the first time hatchery-grown oyster seeds were deployed by drone at this scale for commercial oyster production. He said deploying hatchery-raised seed on the bay bottom wasn't allowed for approved leases in Texasuntil 2025.
The approval planted a seed of an idea for Woody.
"Once we were allowed to do that, I’ve been interested in deploying seed on my private leases to see how it does," Woody said. "A lot of my buddies were in agriculture, rice farmers or whatever, and so I was like, ‘Why not use a drone to do it? It should be pretty quick and efficient.'"
Woody said deploying hatchery-grown oyster seed by drone is more cost-efficient than some existing restoration efforts, and if it works, could also benefit commercial oyster harvesting.
"If it works on a commercial standpoint, if you can go put seed out and you have a bunch of single oysters grow out, that’s really good for market," Woody said.
However, the method has yet to be fully tested at a larger scale. It will be a few months before Woody will see if using the drone to drop seeds can be a long-term tool on the road to restoration.
"My goal with that is number one just to test to see how well it works. Nobody really knows how many seeds you should put to the acre, what size, what the survival rate’s going to be," Woody said. "I will start sampling these when they get big enough where I can catch them in tongs or a dredge and see what the density is and then how [they’re] growing."
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