Living Shorelines Project Protects Ecosystem
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Marine biology and zoology students at CSU Fullerton are learning how to protect coastal ecosystems by participating in the Living Shorelines Project initiated by CSUF and Orange County Coastkeeper to restore OC’s Olympia Oyster beds.
SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti learned that the Olympia Oyster population along California's coastline has been declining due to loss of habitats, pollution and overharvesting.
This puts the species at risk and threatens marine ecosystems that depend on the oysters to bond together and build oyster beds – living structures that prevent erosion and provide homes to sea life.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has been supporting Living Shorelines Projects across the country, says they can help “stabilize coastal areas, reducing erosion while improving habitat, water quality, and resilience.”
As a CSUF grad, Sunny is glad that the Fullerton students are making a difference in restoring oyster beds in Alamitos Bay, Huntington Harbor and Newport Bay. When Sunny was in high school, she had a similar experience, doing scientific research on the Newport Beach Back Bay Estuary measuring changes in water temperatures.
Now, under the direction of CSUF biological sciences professor Danielle Zacherl and her former student Kaysha Kenney (now marine restoration director at OC Coastkeeper), students are working with Orange County Coastkeeper to restore the dwindling oyster beds.
Local restaurants are on board, too, providing discarded oyster shells. Instead of going in the trash, the shells are being used for the project.
Students clean the shells, attach them to strings, and lower the shell strings into the ocean from area docks, providing sites where oyster larvae can attach during the oysters' breeding cycle.
At the end of the cycle in early fall, students will pull up the shell strings and transfer them to oyster beds undergoing restoration...where the oysters attach themselves and bond together...
creating something far more valuable than pearls –
living structures that strengthen OC’s shoreline and protect sea life.
To learn more about oysters, their role in marine ecology, and why it's so important to protect them, check out the books shown in this story.
Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.
