2022-10-24 General Committee Meeting- Item 7 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Oyster Ecosystem Restoration Project - Final Report (1)

Oyster seeding
TNC is working with the Bribie Island Research Centre (BIRC) in a project which will spawn a handful of adult rock oysters
(called ‘brood stock’) under controlled conditions in tanks and settle the oyster larvae onto the project’s cured oyster shell
(called ‘cultch’). The oyster larvae attach to the oyster shell and form oyster ‘spat.’ The oyster cultch set with oyster spat is
called ‘seeded oyster cultch.’ An oyster seeding event is called a ‘set’. A set takes 2-3months to orchestrate. The first set of
seeded cultch (2 tonnes in total) will be inserted into the oyster reef patches by hand by a local team in November 2022
(subject to weather).

The TNC-BIRC partnership is new and innovative. It is involving many personnel, as spawning rock oysters for restoration
purposes is highly technical and has not been undertaken before. Even though TNC would typically partner with the private
sector to undertake the hatchery work, there are few commercial shellfish hatcheries in South-East Queensland and none
with the capacity currently to this work.

The TNC-BIRC partnership aligns with the Queensland Government’s strategy for marine habitat restoration and will deepen
the Queensland Government’s involvement in delivering on that strategy. The partnership will also benefit the rock oyster
aquaculture industry throughout Queensland, as TNC’s support to BIRC further reinvigorates BIRCs investment in oyster
research and industry development.




Figure 13: Collecting broodstock oysters in the Noosa River with oyster technicians from Bribie Island Research Centre Photo
by C Bohm.




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