Pearler of a plan to replenish harbour

Oyster Harbour’s native shellfish is on the road to recovery with the Albany Oyster restoration project paving the way for future initiatives.

Angasi oysters were once plentiful in the harbour but since 1797 when George Vancouver ran aground on a shallow oyster reef the shellfish have been destroyed by overfishing, disease and deterioration of water quality and suitable habitat.

The University of WA Albany, South Coast Natural Resource Management, Recfishwest and The Nature Conservancy Australia project began mid-2015 .

In May, rocky rubble reefs were installed on Oyster Harbour’s seabed.

Oysters, grown in a local hatchery were then seeded onto the banks.

Though still in trial phase, UWA Albany Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management research officer Bryn Warnock said this stage of the project had been vital to future restoration.

“This first phase has been about seeing what works and what doesn’t — we’ve certainly found things that don’t work and we’ve found a whole bunch of things that do work,” he said.

“The second step will form in the next 12 months. ... at that point we will go back into the planning phase and see what our resources are and how many square metres we can restore.”

Mr Warnock said the end goal was a self-sustaining reef.

“What we are working towards is a long-term vision to be able to recreate self-sustaining reefs out there that don’t require any more investment, that don’t require any more work,” he said.

“They will just be out there quietly maintaining themselves, growing and providing all those great ecosystem services we are so interested in.

“We should see some water filtration benefits from that quantity of reef so we would have cleaner water, healthier water and there are all the other benefits as well, like sediment stabilisation and CO2 sequestration.”

Mr Warnock said Princess Royal Harbour and Nornalup Inlet had been identified as other restoration areas.