GULF SHORES — After being suspended in Little Lagoon since May, dozens of oyster cages were harvested from gardens operated by the Little Lagoon Preservation Society (LLPS) on Oct. 2.

About 30 LLPS members volunteered for the harvesting event. In May, each garden site started with around four cages, each holding 25 oyster shells with spat, a juvenile oyster, attached to them. By the time of the harvesting event, each cage was full of oyster clusters.

Clusters form as the spat grows, repopulating and sticking to the shells of each other, as they prefer a hard surface to settle down on.

Cages are suspended to float underwater in the lagoon to prevent access to animals like oyster drills. LLPS President Dennis Hatfield said oyster drills are a "very vicious predator" to oysters. They are like snails with a shell that looks like a hermit crab shell or mini conch. They use this shell to drill into, and ultimately eat, oysters.

Gardeners, who volunteered their lagoon piers and docks for the process, checked in on the cages about once a week to clear off any heavy sediment or algae and ensure no predators had entered the cages.

Gulf Shores High School students use Hatfield's pier as a part of their environmental science class where they garden, measure and harvest oysters for restoration. Students gathered their oysters and headed back to the classroom before LLPS members arrived at the event.

Before LLPS harvesting teams were dispersed to garden sites, a brief explanation on how to measure and count the oysters was provided by PJ Waters with Auburn University, who is conducting oyster restoration along the Gulf Coast, and Laurie Eberly with LLPS.

Harvesters were to select 10 average-sized clusters of oysters from each garden site, count how many oysters were in each cluster and measure one of the oysters in each cluster with a caliper. Oysters were then collected in baskets, which were also counted at each garden. Eberly's team, which included her husband, Tom, and his brother, Larry, had about two baskets full per garden.

"PJ Waters through the university runs the whole thing, and they do this in a number of places — Mobile Bay, Mississippi — but it's not all organized the way this is," Tom Eberly said. "This is more community focused where the people are doing the gardening and the harvesting."

DETAILS ON LITTLE LAGOON OYSTERS

Laurie Eberly said the oysters from the lagoon are not suitable for eating and are only grown for restoration purposes. Little Lagoon is "classified as unclassified," and oyster gardening is not allowed unless it is done as part of a study, like Waters'.

She said many creatures in the lagoon depend on the oyster cages. Typically, she finds a variety of shrimp, crabs and small fish among the oyster clusters. Blue crabs are not typically predatory toward the oysters, but if they grow enough, they will eat them.

Healthy oyster gardens have about 1,000 or more oysters, she said.

"As filter feeders, they can remove various impurities from the water," the LLPS website on oyster gardening reads. "A single oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day."

The website also states there is a decline in oyster habitat, which is why LLPS has partnered with different environmental organizations for restoration and oyster gardening since 2017.

Tom Eberly said the restoration efforts in the area are in effect because the dredging of Mobile Bay's oyster reefs resulted in a muddy bay floor where oysters would often get buried as they tried to settle down. The dredging began in the late 1940s to use shells from the bottom of the bay in road construction and concrete production.

After all oysters were collected from the gardens in Little Lagoon, Waters and his team brought them to undisclosed reefs throughout the lagoon as the oyster harvests were used to establish habitat restoration. Results on total oysters harvested and numbers compared to previous years are to be released by Waters in the coming weeks.

If you live on Little Lagoon and have a pier, Hatfield recommended signing up to garden by contacting Laurie Eberly at lloystergardening@gmail.com. Those who don't live on the lagoon can also help by joining LLPS and participating in gardening events or by donating to LLPS.