Hatchery reviving UK’s near-extinct local oysters

Hatchery reviving UK’s near-extinct local oysters

PORTSMOUTH: Decimated by over-fishing and pollution, British oysters could make a comeback as a hatchery in the Channel port city of Portsmouth is helping to revive a native species. At Portsmouth University's Institute of Marine Sciences, huge piles of empty oyster shells are stacked in the courtyard, ready for the young oyster larvae to move in.

"In the wild environment, the oysters will be reproducing roughly May through to September, and we're hoping that that will be mimicked here in the hatchery,“ said Luke Helmer, a scientist at the Blue Marine Foundation, which co-launched the project in 2015 with the university of Portsmouth.

The hatchery is the first in Britain to focus solely on saving oysters, without any commercial motivation. It aims to reintroduce millions of the European flat oysters (ostrea edulis), a species that is almost extinct in this region. At the center of the research center is a small room full of saltwater tanks that hold the adult oysters that will lead their revival.

The team of scientists are "feeding them, keeping the conditions right“, said Helmer. The team of eight researchers will soon start slowly raising the water temperature to match that of nearby seawater, triggering the oysters to release