Last summer I had a job which required me to drive around Virginia Beach restaurants picking up trash cans full of rotting oysters. \u00a0I cannot even begin to describe the smell!!! \u00a0It was certainly a humbling experience. \u00a0It had a really cool cause though.<\/p>\n
The company that I worked for was called Lynnhaven River Now. \u00a0They do a lot to conserve the Lynnhaven Oyster, which for a while was inedible and becoming endangered due to pollution. \u00a0The Lynnhaven Oyster is really the only edible seafood that comes from the Lynnhaven River, so it’s a tourist must when it comes to eating out in Virginia Beach.<\/p>\n
There are two main issues with saving the Lynnhaven oyster population: 1) Reduce Pollution and 2) Protect the oysters when they reproduce. \u00a0My summer job tackled Issue #2. \u00a0Oysters need other oysters or hard surfaces to latch onto when they reproduce. \u00a0This project was a way to return the shells to their natural habitat, which maintained the natural setting of the river as well as provided a better breeding ground for the once threatened oyster species.<\/p>\n
I would drive around to restaurants with a tractor trailer, dumping sloshy, maggot-ridden cans of picked apart oysters into crates. \u00a0There were 19 restaurants that participated in this “Save Our Shells” program.<\/p>\n
So, once I had all the smelly oysters in the back of the tractor trailer, I would go to the city landfill and dump each crate one by one into a dumpster. \u00a0By the end of the summer, we had filled three dumpsters with oysters. \u00a0Each trip totaled to about a thousand pounds of oysters- which is actually insane. \u00a0This was all done in above 100 degree weather.<\/p>\n
The reason for the oyster dumpsters was to allow them to dry out and get sunbleached so they didn’t smell so terrible. \u00a0So basically I had the dirty work. \u00a0Once they were all dry and pearly white, other people in the group would take the oysters and dump them back into the river. \u00a0They formed oyster reefs, which is kind of like a coral reef for baby oysters. \u00a0In nature, seagulls eat oysters and drop their shells in a reef formation. \u00a0This dumping of the recycled oysters mimicked that process.<\/p>\n
So, that is what I did this summer. \u00a0It was crazy-disgusting but it was something that I was passionate about. \u00a0It kind of reminds me of revegetating a coal mine spoil. \u00a0The goal is to bring the original natural setting back to a place that has been damaged by man.<\/p>\n
I just thought I’d share this with you guys…most people don’t really know much or care about oysters. \u00a0If you have any questions, consider me your shellfish expert.<\/p>\n
-Grace<\/p>\n
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Last summer I had a job which required me to drive around Virginia Beach restaurants picking up trash cans full of rotting oysters. \u00a0I cannot even begin to describe the smell!!! \u00a0It was certainly a humbling experience. \u00a0It had a … Continue reading