Ozfish Membership Drive

[Drop Bear]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to give you all an update on the Oyster Reef Project and ask you all to join OzFish Unlimited.

It is progressing very well. We are holding the OzFish Unlimited Wynnum Fishing Classic from October 12th to October  14th. We will formally launch it on July 14th.

I promise not to post much stuff about it up here. We are running a separate club page for OzFish in a private group. Please let me know if you are keen and would like to join in. We are running this privately so that there is not too much spam here on the main pages.

The plan is to create hundreds of hectares of oyster reef in Moreton Bay. This will change the fishing in the bay forever. 

We would love you to join OzFish Unlimited. It's only $25 and you get a cool hat and a sticker. Check out @Ovington's latest post to see the hat being modeled

You can join here - https://ozfish.org.au/membership/

Please help us spread the word. The more people behind us the more we can make fishing in Moreton Bay better. Ask friends and family if they would like to join.

Also if you know corporations that are doing Community Grants please let me know so I can approach them.

Below is a lot about who we are and what we are doing.

Moreton Bay Shellfish

Reef Restoration Project

 

Introduction

Moreton Bay has lost many thousands of hectares of fish habitat such as seagrass

and saltmarsh but by far the biggest loss has been that of shellfish reefs (over 95%).

These largely unseen and lesser known reefs were once the life blood of our bay. This project

will restore these reefs.

 

What happened to the reefs?

Since European settlement oysters have been over fished. Many were harvested as food but the majority were harvested for the lime in their shells. This lime was used to make cement for the building industry. Today shellfish reefs are considered functionally extinct and the shellfish have no structures to grow on and the populations are too low to allow successful spawning.

 

What are shellfish reefs and why do we need them?

Shellfish reefs are living ecosystems. They are made up by many shellfish but in Moreton Bay the main 3 reef forming species are; Rock Oysters (Saccostrea glomerata), Pearl Oysters (Pinctada albina sugillata) and Hairy Mussel (Trichomya hirsute).  The image below shows a cluster of the 3 main types of shellfish.  

 

These shellfish create complex and vertical structures which are ideal homes, breeding locations and food for a vast array of fish and other marine animals. Every hectare of living shellfish reef can produce 1.5 tonnes of fish.

 

Shellfish are also nature’s water filters. A single adult oyster can filter nearly 200 litres of water every day. It is estimated that at the time of European settlement the oysters in Moreton Bay would filter and clean a volume of water equal to the volume of water in the entire bay every week.

 

Who will benefit?

703,000 people, representing 17% of all Queenslanders recreationally fish every year making it one of our most popular pastimes. Restoring shellfish reefs will benefit;

·         Amateur and commercial fishers by increasing the number of fish that can live and breed in the bay.

·         First Australians by reinstating an important traditional food source.

·         All bay users including; bathers and casual day users, boat users, charter and tour operators, scuba divers and school science groups by improving water quality and fish numbers.

 

Who are we?

 

OzFish Unlimited is the national recreational fishing conservation organisation

committed to restoring fish habitat. We are supported by BCF and its customers,

Australia’s largest Boating Camping and Fishing Store.

 

How will we restore reefs?

Our project will recycle oyster shell collected from wholesale oyster handlers and

restaurants that are currently dumped as landfill. We will turn this rubbish into a valuable resource, creating shellfish reefs in Moreton Bay.

 

We will;

1.       Create an Oyster Shell Recycling Facility

2.       Collect oyster shell from seafood businesses and restaurants

3.       Wash then dry these shells in the sun for 4 months to sterilise them.

4.       Place this clean shell into 1m x 1m wide x .5m high moulds that can be transported.

5.       Place shell-filled moulds into an oyster lease so that oyster spat (baby oysters) can collect on the shells. and grow on each other until they cement all of the shell together and form a clump of oysters called a “Bio Block”.

6.       Leave these “Bio Blocks” on the lease for approximately 1 year until they are fully cemented together and the oysters are strong and healthy enough to survive transportation.

7.       Take the Bio Blocks out of the moulds and return the moulds to the recycling facility for re-use.

8.       Place the Bio Blocks, only containing oyster shell and living shellfish, back into Moreton Bay in areas where they once existed.

9.       Monitor and report on the growth of these oysters and the use of these reefs by fish

 

The Result

In the first year we will produce 200 Bio Blocks. They will be placed 3 metres apart and 3m wide in snaking ribbons on the sea floor. This way we will create a 300m x 6m wide oyster reef fish corridor. We will scale this up over the coming 10 years with the goal of restoring 100 hectares of oyster reef in a decade.

 

Conclusion

This project is an essential step toward restoring the oyster reefs of Moreton Bay. The successful implementation of this plan will ultimately bring back hectares of fish habitat and improve the overall water quality and environmental diversity of Moreton Bay. Supplying native shellfish with viable host sites and injecting billions of living oysters into the environment will kick-start the regeneration of these reefs. Once established they will be self generating and continue to grow until they reach the level they were 2 centuries ago.  

 

With your help, let’s restore Moreton Bay’s wonderful environment.

 

[tugger]

I have joined Ozfish and look forward to helping create these oyster reefs in the bay something future generations and the environment will benefit from.

[Angus]

Looking forward to comp and seeing this project roll out for the next decades!

[Luvit]

Joined and will see you Sunday.

[The Mad Hughesy]

Finally joined now. Lets hope the new hat fits my big head 

[Luvit]

18 hours ago, Luvit said:

Joined and will see you Sunday.

Looks like I may have a deckie spot on Sunday, so I'll catch up at the next meeting.

[Bloodzkull]

Joined