Isle of Wight oyster project is Solent clean up hope

Children at Cowes's Lanesend Primary school are playing a key role in ensuring it will be a success and spent a few hours on Wednesday marking some of the oysters with nail varnish, so their growth and development can be tracked.

Daisy Grist, who is in Year 6, said: " The shell feels like rock. It's hard but soft at the same time. They're bumpy. 

"We need to keep track of them and see how they're doing. When we come back they'll be bigger."

Lanesend Primary's Daisy Grist, left, and Bella Cockburn with the oysters they will help monitor (Image: IWCP)

Abel Richardson and Daisy Grist. (Image: IWCP)

Schoolmate Abel Richardson said: "They felt slimy and wet. We both support Manchester United so we've been drawing the players' faces on the shells."

The project is being delivered by the Blue Marine Foundation and the oysters have come from Oban in Scotland, via a cleaning session at the University of Portsmouth.

Project lead, Eric Harris-Scott, told the County Press oysters are a critical part of the marine environment - a keystone species- and they support around 140 other species, while also filtering water to make it cleaner.   

There used to be 50 million in the Solent but pollution and overfishing depleted numbers.

In the 1920s, a well-meaning bid to reintroduce them saw the Pacific Oyster introduced and it thrived, but it has hit biodiversity by limiting the success of the native oyster.

Eric said: "There used to be enormous oyster reefs, metres long and taller than me.

"The aim is to restore the seascape as a whole. One part of that is oyster reefs in connection with the seagrass meadows and the seagrass nesting sites. All of these different habitats work together.

"We need to work alongside the Pacific Oyster as a stepping stone to where we want to be."

"It's important to get children involved. The project is running for five years, but we're not going to be able to restore the Solent in five years. We're going to have a management plan," he added.

"These oysters can live for 30 years in ideal conditions, so it's the children here who will still be getting the benefits of the oysters."

"If we inspire children now to get involved, we create the next generation of people who care about the environment - get back what has been lost.

"They don't know what there was, so it's important to educate them."

From right, Bayleigh Edmunds, Marlon Eriksson and Felix Beattie (Image: IWCP)

Placing the oysters (Image: IWCP)

Also helping run the project are some of the UKSA's own students.

Among them, Freddie Death said: "I live in the area, so it's great to help the future of the Solent and progress the eco-system.

"Every two weeks in summer we will pull them up and have a look at how they're growing - and once a month in winter."

Ben Willows, CEO of UKSA said: “It is a significant step forward for sustainability on the Island and we’re very proud to be housing the project at UKSA. This project is a great start in making a difference in the marine environment UKSA calls home.”

Gary Hall, CEO at Cowes Harbour Commission said: “We are delighted to be working with UKSA and the Blue Marine Foundation on this very important project for Cowes Harbour because it forms part of our five-year strategic plan and a commitment to deliver the sustainable management and conservation of the harbour, estuary and local environment.”

The project leaders hope other places on the Isle of Wight will follow suit, and host oysters.