Millions of oyster spat deployed as part of Mississippi Oyster Restoration Project

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (WXXV)- Millions of oyster spat were recently deployed into the Mississippi Sound, marking another step in rebuilding one of the Coast’s most valuable natural resources.

Working alongside the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, Spat-Tech released over 30 million oysters into the Mississippi Sound, continuing a restoration effort that helped bring back Mississippi’s first commercial oyster harvest since 2018.

Spat-Tech Hatchery Manager Joshua Weaver said, “So, the process here at Spat-Tech actually starts out here in the wild, we’ll conduct assessments on adult oysters. We check their gonads to see how ripe they are for spawning. Then, we bring them to the hatchery and once we spawn them, we take the eggs and rear the larvae. We’ll grow them out, until they develop a foot, and they’ll set on substrate.”

A long-term shortage of harvestable oysters brought Mississippi’s commercial industry to a standstill, putting restoration efforts like this at the center of the rebuilding process. Spat-Tech Vice President Rory Boasso said, “An adult oyster can filter about 55 gallons of water per day. They’re a stable to our coastal ecosystem, providing a lot of habitats for shrimp, crabs, fish, and a bunch of other organisms. Restoring oysters also benefits commercial and recreational fishermen, as well as our coastal waters in general.”

The next step happens underway where these oysters will spend the next one to three years growing before they’re ready for harvest.

So far this year, about 760 bags of ‘spat on cultch’ have been deployed into the Mississippi Sound, continuing efforts to restore oyster reefs and support future harvests.