López also notes that support from the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund was invaluable. “Helping commercial fishermen recover from Hurricane Florence through boosting North Carolina’s oyster fishery is a great use of some of our hurricane relief funding.” During winter months, wild-harvested oysters provide needed income to support coastal fishing families, while providing tasty, healthy local food to seafood markets,” Hamrick says. “Oysters are an important fishery for North Carolina’s working watermen. Farm Bureau Federation and an advisory board member for Sea Grant, with helping to initiate the collaborative demonstration project. López credits Debbie Hamrick, director of specialty crops for the N.C. The spat grow into adult oysters in this natural setting - and can form dense oyster beds over time.” As the larvae permanently attach to oyster shell in climate-controlled tanks, they are known as ‘spat.’ The spat-on-shell then can be deployed in sounds. “Spat-on-shell culturing allows oysters to be started as larvae in a nursery setting. “Recent storms like Hurricane Florence have impacted wild oyster populations,” says Frank López, extension director for North Carolina Sea Grant. All photos courtesy of John Lambeth (NCFBF). Small brown ovals are juvenile oysters that have set on an old oyster shell. The project’s first deployments of “spat-on shell” was in mid-June.

Eastern oyster spat scar drawing