Nature Conservancy in Mississippi constructing Tony Trapani Oyster Reef

The Nature Conservancy in Mississippi is currently constructing a 35-acre oyster reef in Bay St. Louis.

The Tony Trapani Oyster Reef will serve as a recreational fishing spot for the public, while also offering a landing ground for oysters to populate. 

Agencies across the Gulf are working to repopulate oysters by creating places for them to attach to and mature. 

Commercially, a substrate would be laid on the ocean floor to make harvesting easier, but this reef build is happening vertically by constructing mounds of limestone between one to three feet high. 

Tom Mohrman, who is spearheading this project, explains why this is being done. “Right now we’re upstream of all the commercial beds of the Mississippi Sound. We’re in the western part of the Mississippi Sound. So, as this reef develops over time, oysters will grow on it, attach, reproduce, and have babies. Those babies will drift out as larvae to the area where those commercial reefs are.”

The reef should be finished in two to three weeks. It is just outside of Bayou Portage, south of Wolf River.