PWEC has been selected by DNR as a Local Coordinator for the Marylanders Grow Oysters program for the 2011-2012 year. MGO is a program designed to foster stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay and enhance living oyster bars in sanctuaries. Through the cooperative efforts of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and numerous partners, there are 18 rivers and approximately 8,000 cages currently growing oysters. In 2011, the program has expanded by 5 areas. We at PWEC have nicknamed our program TIGO – Tilghman’s Islanders Grow Oysters – and we hope everyone on Tilghman’s Island with access to waterfront or a boat slip will join us. You can watch a brief video on the project on the WBOC web site. PWEC has committed to placing 200 oyster cages with growers on Tilghman’s Island. Our goal is to have cages on every pier on Tilghman’s Island! If you own waterfront with a pier on Tilghman’s Island, PWEC WANTS YOU! Residential or commercial, it doesn’t matter. If you keep your boat at a marina on Tilghman, PWEC WANTS YOU! Please volunteer to grow oysters with us. Through this fun, educational program, citizen volunteers tend young oysters growing in wire mesh cages suspended from piers for their first year of life. The oyster spat and cages are provided by DNR at no charge to PWEC, and we distribute them to our TIGO growers. The oysters require minimal care – mostly sloshing the cages up and down in thee water every week or two. Growers enjoy the personal rewards of stewardship while contributing to the enhancement of an oyster bar in their area. After about 9 to 10 months, the oysters are collected and planted in a local oyster sanctuary, and a new group of spat are distributed to participating growers to start the process again. One unique component of PWEC’s project is a rigorous monthly disease, growth and mortality monitoring program. Other programs typically collect some of these data twice a year, and do not collect disease data at all. We are sampling cages from 4 locations to closely monitor the performance of our oysters, and to see if there are areas that do better than others. (For example, do the oysters on the river side grow better than those on the Bay side?) PWEC’s Carol McCollough has over 15 years of experience in oyster monitoring and disease diagnostics to manage this portion of our project. Jess Crane, a 2011 PWEC summer intern and Biology major at Washington College, will be collecting and analyzing much of these data for her senior thesis. Kristin Buter, CBT Conservation Corps Volunteer and TIGO Coordinator now is the direct contact for growers and new recruits. The Chesapeake Bay Trust is supporting PWEC by funding Kristen to assist with TIGO management. You can contact her at phillipswharfec@gmail.com. All TIGO related messages to the center should contain "OYSTERS" or "TIGO" in the subject line. Alternatively, you can call her at 410-886-9200. To volunteer, please print and complete our Volunteer Form, and mail it to PWEC. You may also scan your completed form and email it as an attachment to phillipswharfec@gmail.com. Kristin hails from Bowie, and will coordinate volunteer growers, recruit volunteer watermen to plant the oysters next spring, assist with growth and disease assays, communicate progress to our volunteers and to DNR throughout the program year, and assist volunteer growers with any concerns or problems that may arise. You can still reach Project Manager Carol McCollough at oysters@pwec.org. |
