Oyster Garden at Hyatt Regency Part of Year Long Project

(CAMBRIDGE, Md) – A Maryland group is partnering with a Cambridge hotel with the goal of repopulating oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is raising baby oysters, or spat, all across the state, and the Hyatt isn’t just a great place for people to stay, it’s also host to an ideal environment for the spat to mature.

“With the Hyatt know they were a corporate group who had this amazing waterfront access that they wanted to use for good,” says Morgan Shapiro with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

It all happens at the marina.

Yagmur Quillin, a reprsentative for the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge tells us, “So it started with oyster construction cages. So groups were actually building these cages that are now in our water. And the conversation just started, Hey, can we put these in your marina? Is there an unused space?”

The oysters will grow over the next year, and then relocate them to a sanctuary out in the Chesapeake.

But for now, protecting the spat as they mature inside these enclosures is key.

Morgan says, “If we can put them in a cage and protect them from one of their largest predators is the blue crab. So the cage will keep the blue crabs out, and so it’ll help them grow and become a little larger, a little more resilient.”

Like a nursery, the marina protects the baby oysters from some of the harsher conditions found in the Bay.

“So this is an ideal location. A full grown oyster can filter about 50 gallons of water a day. So it’s really important for us to preserve the keystone species of our bay,” says Yagmur.

If you would like to know more about the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Oyster Garden Program, or want to help cultivate oysters to be released into the bay, you can visit their website for more information.