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Restoring Our Oyster. Cleaning Our Bay. Preserving Our Future. May/June 2012 Newsletter |
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Support Oyster Restoration | |
Don't forget to take advantage of tax benefits by donating to ORP now!
Workplace Giving:  |
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Did You Know? | |
With over 85% of oyster reefs depleted worldwide - oysters reefs are one of the world's most severly affected and threatened marine habitats.
This is an unprecedented and alarming decline of a critically important habitat. As ecosystem engineers in bays and estuaries, oysters provide water filtration, habitat for other marine life, as well as costal buffering.
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| ORP Outreach | |
Mark Your Calendar:
The Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery has graciously offered for ORP supporters to tour their facility in Cambridge, MD. On this tour you will also see the ORP field crew hard at work.
The purpose of this tour is to raise awareness about oyster restoration in Maryland and to reward those who tirelessly support our work. ORP is planning our annual partner tour of the Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery for July 31, 2012. LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE - first come, first served.
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Oyster Trivia | |
Oyster Trivia
For our first month of planting in 2012, ORP planted ______ million spat-on-shell oysters back into the Bay.
a. 12 b. 50 c. 120
d. 170
Read the next issue of The Bay Restorer to learn the answer!
Answer from last issue's question: For the 5th year in a row, ORP planted over 500 million spat-on-shell back into the Chesapeake Bay in 2011. |
| Meet Our Board Members |
 Andrew Shore
Partner,
Jochum Shore & Trossevin
Andrew Shore is a founding partner of Jochum Shore & Trossevin and Black Swan LLC - a Washington, DC based law and public policy firm. A strong conservationist, Andrew is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the National Zoo. A native of the suburbs of Chicago, Andrew grew up on Lake Michigan lifeguarding and teaching sailing during the summers where he fell in love with the water and all of its treasurers. As a certified scuba diver who doesn't get out nearly enough, he hopes to one day have his wife and two children join him on some adventures diving in the Bay and on the Eastern Shore. The Shore's currently reside in Arlington, VA with their fish Wishy and two frogs who's names they can never remember. |
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 | | Spat-on-shell ready to be planted in the Harris Creek sanctuary. |
On April 30, the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) together with the University of Maryland Horn Point Laboratory (HPL) Oyster Hatchery began our 2012 oyster planting season. Since then we've planted over 300million oysters into the the Chesapeake Bay's Harris Creek, one of the 20 tributaries selected for restoration in support of President Obama's Executive Order to restore oyster habitat and populations. Over the next few years, we will be restoring over 300 acres of oyster reefs in Harris Creek, of which more than 70 acres will be completed this year. We could not do all of this important work without our partnership supporters.
-- Stephan Abel, Executive Director, ORP
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Are You an Oyster Insider?
The Marylanders Grow Oysters Program (MGO), initiated by Governor Martin O'Malley in September 2008, allows hundreds of Marylands waterfront property owners to grow millions of young oysters in cages suspended from their private piers. The goal of the program is to protect delicate young oysters during their vulnerable first year of life.
After the baby oysters spend their first winter and spring on these private docks they are then recollected and planted onto local oyster sanctuaries where they will continue to enrich the marine ecosystem through water filtration and habitat creation.
In 2011, Maryland oyster stewards tended about 8,000 cages of oysters. With an average of 300 oysters per cage, over 2 million oysters were added to Bay sanctuaries.
It's now that time of year when local tributaries with support from DNR and ORP begin to gather the cages of growing oysters to place then on local sanctuaries. In addition to our main restoration plantings, ORP will be busy assisting in the collection of cages from participating MGO partners around the Bay.
For more information on the program visit
http://www.oysters.maryland.gov or email Chris Judy cjudy@dnr.state.md.us TO ASK HOW YOU AND YOUR TRIBUTARY CAN JOIN
 | | Chesapeake Montessori student monitoring her school's "Marylanders Grow Oysters" cages. |
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ORP Welcomes New SRA Members
The Oyster Recovery Partnership's most publicly-recognized
program - the region's first oyster Shell Recycling Alliance is made up of nearly 150 restaurants, caterers and seafood distributors from the DC, Maryland and Virginia region, as well as citizen volunteers who collect used oyster shells from area businesses to aid in restoring the Chesapeake Bay. Oyster reefs are one of the most endangered marine habitats on the planet, but eating oysters can help save the Bay. For every shell recycled, ORP can plant 10 new oysters back into the Bay.
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ORP's Shell Recycling Alliance provides 15% of Maryland's shell needs at current oyster production levels! |
Our newest SRA members:
Washington, DC:
Annapolis:
Mike's Crab House
Buddy's Crabs and Ribs
Chart House
O'Leary Seafood
Wild Orchid
Crofton, MD:
Big Fish Grille
Baltimore, MD:
Superior Catering by M&M Son
Ocean City, MD:
Galaxy 66 Bar and Grill
Jessup, MD:
Capital Seaboard Produce and Seafood |
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Out & About
Since assisting ORP on a shell recycling collection trip before Earth Day this year, the self-labeled "Pearl Girls" -- a group of 5 creative, intelligent 6th graders -- have been busy helping ORP to expand our Shell Recycling Alliance membership!
These eco-minded girls have created an informative multi-media awareness campaign to educate their fellow students about the importance of oysters to our bay and to help build awareness among local restaurants. In addition, they personally visited area restaurants to recruit new members and pick up used oyster shells. The girls' goal is to provide every seafood restaurant in Annapolis with a custom-decorated plastic bucket using oyster-related artwork by local elementary school students so that restaurants can recycle their shells directly with ORP. They also worked hard to raise funds for ORP and recently presented our Executive Director, Stephan Abel, and our Shell Recycling Alliance Manager, Bryan Gomes, with a $1000 check!
Incredible work, ladies. Your work will inspire others to pay it forward.
If you are interested in learning more or becoming a Shell Recycling Alliance member, please visit www.oysterrecovery.org or call Bryan Gomes at ORP (410) 990-4970.
See the YouTube video they created: Click Here!
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On The Bay | | Steven Weshler of the HPL Oyster Hatchery adding larvae to a remote setting tank. |
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources in cooperation with the University of Maryland Extension (UME), University Of Maryland Horn Point Oyster Hatchery (HPL) and the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) with funding provided by NOAA, are offering a multi-year aquaculture training Remote Setting Program that is giving interested watermen and private oyster growers the opportunity the learn how to and produce their own oyster spat on shell via remote setting. This production method is a cost-effective way for Chesapeake Bay leaseholders to produce their own oyster seed.
Remote setting is the process by which oyster larvae are placed into tanks that have been filled with clean cultch (oyster shell) where larvae set on the shell. This is a small scale version of the process used by HPL to produce oysters for our restoration efforts. Once attached, the shell are transported and placed on the grower's leased Bay bottom. The program provides free use of tanks with all supporting equipment and technical support. Additionally, larvae are provided at no charge to the user for their first set. The grower will need to acquire or purchase their own shell and provide the labor to produce and plant their spat.
For more information email: rst@oysterrecovery.org.  | | Remote setting tank filled with oyster shells almost ready for larvae. |
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Ask a Scientist
 | | Baby oysters that have set onto a recycled oyster shell - Photo by Erika Nortemann |
Q: Why is monitoring oyster restoration activities important?
A: There is no golden book of oyster restoration, so in order to determine if what we are doing is working or not, the ORP regularly checks on the health and abundance of oysters they have planted over the years. The data collected helps us adapt the way in which we carry out restoration and helps us improve the quality and effectiveness of the work we do. |
Partner Profile
The Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT) is the only nonprofit, grant-making organization dedicated to sparking on-the-ground change for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in Maryland. Their goal is to increase stewardship through grant programs, special initiatives, and partnerships that support environmental education, demonstration-based restoration, and community engagement activities. Their work touches more than 150,000 Marylanders annually in every county in Maryland and Baltimore City. For more information please visit their website at www.cbtrust.org.
ORP has been fortunate to be a recipient of CBT grants and funding. Their assistance has made it possible for ORP to grow our Shell Recycling Alliance and educate more individuals about oyster restoration and the need to recycle shells to plant more oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.
Do you have a CBT Bay Plate yet? Bay Plates Plant Oysters! Maryland's Treasure the Chesapeake license plate helps the Chesapeake Bay. Proceeds raised from Bay Plate purchases help fund projects and organizations working to protect and restore the Chesapeake. For the past 2 years, Bay plates have helped plant over one million oysters back into the Bay. Plate purchases have also assisted in the removal of over 1,000 tons of trash to help the Bay, engaged 800,000 students and teachers, and planted 500,000 trees and plants along the shore.
Get your Bay plate TODAY - http://www.bayplate.org
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Aw Shucks!
 | | There "Pearl Girls" used their "swords of knowledge" to recruit new SRA members to help the Bay. |
Why then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open. - William Shakespear, |
 Oyster Recipe
Oysters with Lime Mayonnaise
Ingredients:
For Mayonnaise:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tps garlic flavored chili
Juice of 1 lime
For Oyster:
30 oystes, shucked, rinsed, and patted dry
Cornflour
2 eggs, beaten
Fine panko bread crumbs
Peanut oil
Salt
Directions:
1. In a bowl combine mayonnaise ingredients (mayonnaise, chili, lime juice) and mix thoroughly. Then refrigerate flavored mayonnaise.
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About the Oyster Recovery Partnership |
Working with more than a dozen stakeholder groups to rehabilitate historic and relic oyster bars, the Oyster Recovery Partnership has planted more than nearly 4 billion new oysters, rehabilitated more than 1,500 acres of once viable oyster reefs, and recycled more than 15,000 bushels of shell. Learn more.
Restoring Our Oyster. Cleaning Our Bay. Preserving Our Future. This is the mission of the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) -- a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Annapolis, MD. ORP actively promotes, supports and restores oysters for ecologic and economic purposes. We engage in numerous Chesapeake Bay-related projects by conducting science-based "in-the-water" and "on-the-land" recovery efforts, while conducting public outreach and education in our quest to protect our environment, our heritage, and our knowledge of the Chesapeake Bay, its marshes and rivers and the life that it sustains.
A copy of our current financial statement is available upon request by contacting the Oyster Recovery Partnership, Inc. at 1805A Virginia Street, Annapolis, MD 21401 or 410.990.4970. Documents and information submitted to the State of Maryland under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are available from the Office of the Secretary of State for the cost of copying and postage. Oyster Recovery Partnership, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization -- donations to which are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. |
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