Seafood lovers are being invited to help play their part in safeguarding the UK’s critically important indigenous oyster beds by asking for native oysters when they dine out. The call comes as the native oyster season officially opens tomorrow, Friday 1st September.
Scotland’s only native oyster boat, The Vital Spark crewed by local fishermen Rab Lamont and John Mills, will then be in a race against time to harvest the thousands of Loch Ryan native oysters needed ahead of Stranraer Oyster Festival later this month.
The Loch Ryan oyster bed is one of the most important native oyster beds in Europe. It’s the last wild native oyster fishery in Scotland, and the bed has been protected by Royal Charter since 1701. Native oysters help marine ecosystems by providing important habitat for coastal wildlife. With almost all of the UK’s native oyster beds overfished to near-extinction in previous centuries, the oysters from Loch Ryan are now being used to help ‘re- seed’ native oyster restoration projects across the UK and in Germany.
Tristan Hugh-Jones of Loch Ryan Oyster Fishery said members of the public can support native oyster bed restoration by specifically asking for native oysters in restaurants. He said:
“We know that native oysters are important in marine ecosystems. In fact, right across Europe, there’s a huge amount of interest in the restoration of native oyster beds, but to do that sustainably we need to be able to sell them. Which means we need the public to ask for native oysters specifically.
“The more people eat and enjoy natives, the more they’ll support native oyster breeding and growing. It really is that simple. Stranraer Oyster Festival has done an incredible job of shining a spotlight on the ecological treasure that lies beneath the water of Loch Ryan – and demand for Loch Ryan natives is soaring.
“We’ve already seen Loch Ryan native oyster numbers grow from 1 million to 60 million over the past 30 years, which is an incredible turnaround for the species.
“Our goal is to increase the number of oysters in the loch to 100 million by 2040. We think it’s achievable, and the more demand there is, the more hands-on management of the bed we will be able to carry out to nurture that growth.”
Native oysters, Ostrea edulis, are famously only available in months that contain the letter ‘R’ (1st September to 30th April). Beds are left undisturbed during the important summer breeding months to allow the oyster larvae – spats – to be fertilised and settle.
Native oysters are distinct from the more commonly found ‘farmed’ rock oysters, being slower to grow with a flatter shell and a more refined flavour.
A healthy native oyster bed requires the oysters to be densely distributed. When an oyster is physically close to its neighbour, it fertilises the offspring well. Sustainable management of Loch Ryan oyster bed involves harvesting only the largest oysters, then returning 95% of each ‘catch’ back to a dense
Scotland’s only native oyster boat, The Vital Spark crewed by local fishermen Rab Lamont and John Mills, will then be in a race against time to harvest the thousands of Loch Ryan native oysters needed ahead of Stranraer Oyster Festival later this month.
The Loch Ryan oyster bed is one of the most important native oyster beds in Europe. It’s the last wild native oyster fishery in Scotland, and the bed has been protected by Royal Charter since 1701. Native oysters help marine ecosystems by providing important habitat for coastal wildlife. With almost all of the UK’s native oyster beds overfished to near-extinction in previous centuries, the oysters from Loch Ryan are now being used to help ‘re- seed’ native oyster restoration projects across the UK and in Germany.
Tristan Hugh-Jones of Loch Ryan Oyster Fishery said members of the public can support native oyster bed restoration by specifically asking for native oysters in restaurants. He said:
“We know that native oysters are important in marine ecosystems. In fact, right across Europe, there’s a huge amount of interest in the restoration of native oyster beds, but to do that sustainably we need to be able to sell them. Which means we need the public to ask for native oysters specifically.
“The more people eat and enjoy natives, the more they’ll support native oyster breeding and growing. It really is that simple. Stranraer Oyster Festival has done an incredible job of shining a spotlight on the ecological treasure that lies beneath the water of Loch Ryan – and demand for Loch Ryan natives is soaring.
“We’ve already seen Loch Ryan native oyster numbers grow from 1 million to 60 million over the past 30 years, which is an incredible turnaround for the species.
“Our goal is to increase the number of oysters in the loch to 100 million by 2040. We think it’s achievable, and the more demand there is, the more hands-on management of the bed we will be able to carry out to nurture that growth.”
Native oysters, Ostrea edulis, are famously only available in months that contain the letter ‘R’ (1st September to 30th April). Beds are left undisturbed during the important summer breeding months to allow the oyster larvae – spats – to be fertilised and settle.
Native oysters are distinct from the more commonly found ‘farmed’ rock oysters, being slower to grow with a flatter shell and a more refined flavour.
A healthy native oyster bed requires the oysters to be densely distributed. When an oyster is physically close to its neighbour, it fertilises the offspring well. Sustainable management of Loch Ryan oyster bed involves harvesting only the largest oysters, then returning 95% of each ‘catch’ back to a dense
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10 The Vital Spark was built in the Clyde in the '70s.
00:14 And it was worked in Scotland for a few years.
00:17 Then it was sold to Republic of Ireland.
00:20 And it was a prawn boat over there.
00:22 And then Trist and our boss brought it back.
00:25 So its name was originally Vital Spark.
00:27 Then they changed it to something else in Ireland.
00:29 And we put it back to the Vital Spark.
00:31 It's the only native oyster bed, natural native oyster bed,
00:35 left in Britain.
00:36 So obviously, we try to preserve it.
00:38 So we take a very, very small percentage
00:41 of what we catch out.
00:43 I mean, you can see there's a lot of different sizes.
00:45 But we only take a specific size.
00:48 Everything else goes back into a marked area
00:51 and lifted again in five, six, seven years' time.
00:55 So you're only taking a small percentage
00:57 but moving them to an area that you
00:59 know you can come back and fish in seven years' time.
01:02 And all the small, they grow.
01:04 But we don't overfish.
01:06 We never overfish.
01:06 That's why there's no oyster beds left.
01:09 Human nature's greedy.
01:11 If you left, everybody come in here.
01:13 They would empty the place in a year.
01:15 This has never happened in St. Art.
01:16 It's always just been the permission, I bet,
01:19 the Wallace family for Cairnryan.
01:20 They've protected them for 400 years.
01:23 They just come out every day in the months when I'm in them.
01:26 Because it's like seasonal.
01:27 You can only fish--
01:29 you can only sell them in the restaurant
01:31 in a month when I'm in them.
01:33 So it means you're off all summer.
01:34 But that's because that's the breeding season.
01:36 So you've got to leave them.
01:38 So as they reproduce, you've got to leave them
01:40 in peace and quiet in the summer without disturbing them.
01:44 They pay good money in London for an oyster.
01:46 So they want four or six identical looking oysters.
01:50 So they're restricted to like between 85 and 115 grams,
01:55 which is a small percentage of what we catch.
01:58 It's only maybe 5% of what we catch.
02:01 It goes down to London.
02:02 The rest goes back in the sea.
02:04 It's good for St. Arles, Joe, because the oyster festival.
02:07 If it wasn't for the oysters, we wouldn't
02:08 have had the oyster festival, which is good for St. Arles.
02:12 I've worked on boats before, but never a job like this.
02:16 I mean, it only is the two of us.
02:17 We come out here every morning.
02:19 And it's amazing out here in the morning.
02:21 You get the sun rise, and it's quiet.
02:24 And you just carry on with your job.
02:26 And then when you've caught enough, you head back in.
02:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]