August 2020

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Students from Fremont's Irvington High School exploring and learning about oyster restoration in the Bay Changing the World - One Local Ecosystem at a time   We only have this one planet. Are we doing a good job of being nurturing stewards of Planet Earth? In the last three years, our federal government has dismantled many of the major climate and environmental policies that were so hard fought. Calling the rules unnecessary and burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and rapacious corporations, this administration has weakened limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions for autos and power plants and rolled back nearly 100 more rules governing clean air, water, and toxic chemicals.  Your right to clean air, clean water, and controls on polluters – all rules that sought to protect you and your children, the world’s ocean, its wildlife, and flora and fauna - have been attacked or dismantled. We in the environmental movement, along with caring citizens, worked to strengthen ecosystems so that they might adapt to the pressures caused by climate change.  The state of the world we are living in also brought to the forefront how the inequities rampant in our country and the world, especially the recognition that environmental justice, social justice, climate change, and institutional racism are all connected and all disproportionately affect communities of color. We can see in the current pandemic we are living through how environmental injustice impacts health and how our most vulnerable communities suffer most. So, what can you do? Take a look around you. Sheltering in place has made us look at our own spaces as if under a microscope. Your house, your garden, your neighborhood, and your community is the ecosystem in which you live. Perhaps for the first time you are noticing the hummingbird that alights on the fuchsia in your neighbor’s yard, the raven chasing a red tailed hawk, or have stopped to count the wild parrots as they fly past screaming "Here we are! Here we are!" These interludes with nature are a great way for us to recognize the connectivity of everything, including the way we have conducted business in this country and whose voices have not been heard. The Black Lives Matter movement gives us an opportunity to address hundreds of years of social injustice. We can and we must work together to listen and continue the dialogue that will put an end to systemic racism and its conjoined twin, environmental injustice.  If you live in the Bay Area an important part of your ecosystem is the Bay itself! Beautiful to watch, fun to be in, under, or around. We hope you are taking some moments to notice and enjoy your bay and invite you to join us in making it a better place. To sign up to volunteer, just go to our website. We currently have opportunities for shell pick up at local restaurants and a new community science program (see our piece on Oyster Base Camps below). We have been hard at work reimagining our programs so they are safe for every participant in the time of Covid-19. We would be grateful to have your monetary support as well. Please consider a tax-deductible donation here Fall in love with your local ecosystem!  Please VOTE! Tales from the Marsh   Wild Oyster Project, in partnership with the EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park and San Francisco Recreation and Parks, invites you to join our free family friendly livestream story time and presentation happening this Thursday, August 13th, from noon to 1pm: Tales from the Marsh! If you would like to participate, please email Education Manager Reiko Ando at reiko@wildoysters.org or EcoCenter Manager Miguel Dimas at Miguel.Dimas@sfgov.org for the Zoom link. We hope to see you there!   A Day in the Life - A look inside the Bodega Marine Laboratory As well as being a key member of the Wild Oyster team, Chelsey Souza is a Junior Specialist at Bodega Marine Lab. Here she gives a peek into the life of a scientist at a world class research facility. UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) & Bodega Marine Reserve is an amazing research hub located 65 miles north of San Francisco, hosting researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, volunteers, and the general public.  Summertime means the return of strong north to south winds which bring seasonal coastal upwelling to the West Coast. This water is cold & nutrient-rich allowing for highly productive ecosystems.    Similar to our highly productive coast, summertime at BML is a lively ecosystem of its own. The voices of curious, young scientists fill the halls. The lecture room is packed with eager undergraduates & across the hall and out the double doors, you can find volunteers serving lunch to the resident rockfish in the tide pool. Every Friday the lab opens its doors to the public for docent guided tours where children shout & point in awe at the tanks in the Great Hall. In the Bay Tank, large colorful anemones first catch their gaze, followed by the silver perch fish, and lastly Mongo, the massive orange sea star on the back wall of the tank. Every summer BML experiences this influx of students & visitors who bring so much life this half a century old cement building.  Today the lab is quiet & still. There are no echoes through the lab, the halls contain only faint whispers from the limited staff present. Disinfectant stations are peppered around the lab along with signage, indicating the number of people allowed in each room. The lecture hall is vacant with no sign of recent use and the tide pool is visited by the natural wildlife more than humans. This is BML today.  In the distance, seabirds are feeding on a school of fish & a nearby spout of water appears from a migrating grey whale. When the time is right, our lively ecosystem will return. Introducing Oyster Base Camps These past 5 months have reshaped how we live our lives, including how we approach oyster restoration. How do we build habitats for oysters while keeping each other safe? We’ve been reshaping our approach and we’re ready to share it with you. Oyster Base Camps take the modular approach of our Crab Pot Reef design and incorporate it into individual oyster habitats. An Oyster Base Camp (OBC) is a single mesh cage filled with cured, recycled oyster shell. Suspended from a dock, the cage is always immersed in water, but never touches the bottom. This has certain advantages we’re hoping will increase oyster recruitment and settlement. Being suspended in the current at all times, more food will be available to oysters living in an OBC, it also protects oysters from heat stress and certain predators. In addition, a single OBC at one location is easily monitored by one or two people safely. The Oyster Base Camp design is very similar to various oyster gardener projects pioneered on the East Coast and in the gulf and have had much success in raising the public profile of oyster restoration and building support for conservation.  Just like the Olympia oyster itself, the Oyster Base Camp program is small, but impactful. OBCs are not large artificial reefs, the cages themselves will not protect the shoreline from sea level rise the way a natural oyster bed would. However, if Oyster Base Camps help increase oyster recruitment and settlement and give us insight into where oyster larvae are settling, this will benefit the overall oyster population and the creation of new Olympia oyster beds over time. This design approach allows us to put recycled shell in more locations in the Bay and involve more communities in monitoring, maintaining, and collecting data from each OBC. We’re currently building our first 5 OBCs and refining our procedures for safe community involvement. Stay tuned to hear more about this exciting project in our next edition of Aw Shucks! Finally, shout out to Mission Rock Resort for becoming our latest Save Your Shucks partner! Thank you for your encouragement and support. If you like to make a donation to Wild Oyster Project, that would be so appreciated. Be well. Be safe. Be kind. - Wild Oyster Project   Donate

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