RESTOCKING OYSTER BEDS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 56, 8 March 1915, Page 2

RESTOCKING OYSTER BEDS

The work of replanting oyster beds is most interesting (6ays a writer in the Auckland Herald). It has been carried on since 1909, when tho Government realised that if Aucklailders Were to have any oysters at all in later years something besides conservation would be necessary. Since then the work has gone on year by year". The method of replanting i& quite simple. Detached rocks of moderate size covered with mature oysters are taken from a good bed. and shipped down by scow to depleted areas, one scow load being sufficient for tea now beds. A favourable spdt is chosen, and at high tide the stones are dropped overboard on the oyster line, that is, Oft a line between high and low-water mark. At low-tide men go ashore, place the boulders in position, and bank them up with stones so as to keep them securely in place. It takes about five yettre for an oyster to spawn, so that not until 1920 Will the rteW oysters in restocked beds come to maturity. The epat, or oyster spawn, drifts for miles on the tide; much of it is devoured by hungry fish, the rest washes up on rocky shores, and after a most interesting process finally develops into the much-desired bivalve. The great objection to the promiscuous raids of picnickers is that,' failing to realise the damage they are doing, they remove only the upper shell, and as spat never settles on the smooth shell'SUrface left, the beds they attack are practically ruined. A great deal of replenishing work hag been done this season, men having been working day and night. The Waiheke, Paihiki, and Ponui Island beds ai'6 this year in exceptionally good condition, and some 20 scow loads of rock have been taken from Paihiki Island alone. Many new beds have been made round Auckland's shores, and in additioii much work has been done as far away as Coromandel and Great Barrier Island. Since the work of replanting wa s first undertaken, the result© have been most satisfactory, and an excellent and plentiful supply of oysters is promised for the coming seaeon, which opens on Ist May.