Published: 20 June 2023

Mayor Mathew Hatcher has become a bit of an oyster nerd since helping at the Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline project in autumn, where he joined local divers settling in baby native flat oysters onto the new subtidal reefs.

Larvae were collected from Wagonga Inlet and transported to a Port Stevens hatchery. Once grown out, a couple of million spat were trucked back to Narooma and put in a special tank to settle on clean oyster shells donated by local oyster farmers.

Once settled, Mat helped Joonga Aboriginal divers distribute the bagged oysters across the six small subtidal reefs already installed for the project.

These oyster reefs are specifically for estuary health and biodiversity – protecting the shoreline and creating homes for hundreds of other marine species – not for oyster farming or public harvest.

This rewilding is a first for NSW; it’s been decades since wild flat oyster reefs have been seen in the state. The Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline is a collaborative project between Council, the NSW Department of Primary Industries, The Nature Conservancy Australia, and the Australian Government.

Next up for the Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline project, we’re talking with local Aboriginal creatives to develop art for interpretive signs along the foreshore.

• This story was first published in Council’s quarterly newsletter for residents, Living in Eurobodalla. A printed edition is delivered to the shire’s 26,000 households.
• Download a copy of Living in Eurobodalla:  June - August 2023 (1.0 MB)

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