I just discovered the coastal eco-system of Tuckerton, New Jersey when my family stumbled its way into this historical fishing community in the summer of 2022. My parents found a house (foolishly?) close to the water and I fell in love with Tuckerton Bay, a tiny corner of the Barnegat Bay watershed — with its birds, its crabs, its views, salt marshes and rocks.
As I gear up to launch my own nonprofit to curb litter in the Tuckerton Bay area this year, I am so excited to draw attention to local residents and business people who have a similar passion, some of whom have been working for decades to preserve the health, beauty, and culture of the bay.
Dale Parsons, the fifth generation owner of Parsons Seafood on Green Street in Tuckerton, runs an incredible program dedicated to restoring local oyster populations. His Oyster Reef Recovery Program works in cooperation with Stockton University and the Barnegat Bay Partnership to restore the once prosperous oyster reef that has decreased to less than one percent of its original size within the last century.
Parsons says, “there are a million and one reasons why we need an oyster reef in the bay,” including water quality concerns and an excess of phytoplankton. The program uses recycled conch, oyster, and clam shells, which provide optimal surfaces for oyster larvae to latch onto. Once the larvae set on a shell and grow to form an oyster “blister,” the restoration team transports them to the bay to stimulate re-population.
The Oyster Reef Recovery Program also plans to plant Zostera in the bay, a marine plant which absorbs nitrogen from the water during growth and protects many species in early stages of life.
I love to see communal efforts to benefit local ecosystems and hope to interview Mr. Parsons soon! His deep knowledge of what the fish and shellfish of the Barnegat Bay watershed need to thrive will be an inspiration as I find my own ways to help.