Friends of Bellport Bay- Fobb

What a night at the 10th Anniversary 🦪

A huge thank you to Pete Malinowski, & the Overbrook Foundation for honoring FoBB as a grant recipient toward shellfish restoration, ecosystem health, Bay habitat & water quality improvement. 🌊

Thomas Schultz, FoBB co-founder, accepted the grant on FoBB’s behalf. 🐡

The Overbrook Foundation advises on environmental philanthropy, ranging from biodiversity conservation, sustainable consumption & innovation. 🌎

They are currently spearheading initiatives to build a stronger, more inclusive & equitable environmental movement. Thank you Overbrook Foundation! 💙

Last Wednesday, the FoBB team was on the Bay building our first oyster reef. 🦪

Our FoBB water operations team, directed by Thomas Schultz, transported 45 mesh bags of cured oyster shells to the site. Cornell’s Aquaculture Specialist Gregg Rivara & Seatuck’s Connor Dempsey worked underwater to stake the bags around the perimeter of the future oyster reef. 🌊

Oyster reefs play a crucial role in restoring Bays & coastal ecosystems, providing:
- Water filtration for healthier aquatic environments 
- Habitat creation for diverse marine species 
- Erosion control of shoreline
- Economic benefits to enhance fishing conditions

The 1st oyster reef in Bellport Bay would not be possible without our partnerships & shared vision with & 🐡

Many thanks to our amazing FoBB interns, volunteers, generous friends, supporters & foundations for making the building of the reef into a reality! 💙

Another great day with the FoBB Team! 🌊

Last week, FoBB planted another 60,000 oysters in the Town sanctuary. Grown out from seed, the oysters are maintained throughout the summer by FoBB interns in our residential garden cages, until they are large enough to be transported to the protected shellfish sanctuary. 🦪

Our total planted amount is now at approximately 4 million shellfish, working to clean the Bay one shellfish at a time. Thank you to the FoBB interns, team members, and donors who make this mission possible! 💙

Last Thursday, & FoBB planted 100 cubic ft of Spat-on-Shell (“SOS”), hosting 500,000 baby oysters on shell in the sanctuary & along the Bellport Bay shoreline. 🦪

Working to restore sustainable oyster populations, improve water quality & revive ecosystem health in Bellport Bay & the Great South Bay. 🌊

Thank you to CCESC & our supporters for making our mission possible! 💙

The beginning of an oyster! 🦪

The oysters of the Bay are spawning, with their offspring building habitat across Bellport Bay and the Great South Bay. 🌊

Last week, Cornell Marine Aquaculture Specialist
Gregg Rivara & FoBB Co-Director Maria Slavnova discovered oyster larvae under a microscope. 🔬

The larvae set on our Spat collectors in the Bay 3 weeks ago. Seen here is the beginning of an eye-spot. 👁️

Bringing life back to the Bay, one oyster at a time! 💙

Happy National Oyster Day! 🦪

Today is FoBB’s favorite holiday. Oysters are the backbone of our entire mission - to improve the water quality of Bellport Bay and the Great South Bay, one shellfish at a time. 🌊

Since FoBB’s founding in 2015, we have planted over 3.5 million shellfish in the Bay, with the vast majority of those shellfish being oysters. 🦪

A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day! With our efforts, over 175 million gallons of Bay water are being filtered per day. This amount continues to increase as our planted amount increases. 🐡

Thank you to the support from our community and generous donors, making the planting of oysters in the Bay possible. And here’s to our oyster friends who make all of this happen! 💙

Thank you to the David M. Duffy Jr. Foundation for funding a collaborative marine program with the Boys & Girls Club of Bellport and CEED, with a focus on restoring the Bay. 🌊

Teen club members from the Boys & Girls Club of Bellport helped collect data for FoBB’s aquaculture report and planted approximately 30,000 oysters into the Bay Sanctuary. 🦪

Thank you for helping in our efforts to restore the ecosystem of the Bay! 💙

It was a full house last Friday at the Bellport Community Center, when FoBB hosted a seminar with Dr. Olivia Caretti, Coastal Restoration Manager at The Oyster Recovery Partnership in Maryland & Pete Malinowski, Executive Director at the Billion Oyster Project in NYC. 🏙️

As they took to the stage, Olivia & Pete engaged our community with their knowledge and history in oyster and habitat restoration. 🦪

Many thanks to Olivia & Pete for giving our community the opportunity to hear about your great work and successes, and how it relates directly to FoBB’s restoration work on the Bay. 🌊

Thank you to our FoBB Co-Founder, Thomas Schultz, for leading the discussion, to our sponsors who made this seminar possible & to all who attended! 💙



Our Bays Need Us-The Room Where It Happens. Join us-Friday, July 19 @ 6:30 PM friendsofbellportbay.org Please join us for an informative evening. Olivia Caretti, Restoration Manager of the Oyster Recovery Partnership of the Chesapeake Bay and

https://conta.cc/4cfs7Ep

Our Bays Need Us-The Room Where It Happens. Join us-Friday, July 19 @ 6:30 PM friendsofbellportbay.org Please join us for an informative evening. Olivia Caretti, Restoration Manager of the Oyster Recovery Partnership of the Chesapeake Bay and

$10 million from NYS to fund new regional shellfish hatchery in East Islip Once built, the new facility will be the spot for NYS shellfish farmers to purchase juvenile shellfish, known in aquaculture terms as seed.

https://www.facebook.com/share/NFr4AAuuqzpQs5u4/?mibextid=WaXdOe

Oysters take center stage at restoration conference - The Long Island Advance With the backdrop of the South Shore a window-view away, an array of biologists, council members, financial consultants, farmers, a town mayor, and citizens gathered at The View in Oakdale for some …

Working together, we can make a difference and restore natural shellfish colonies in our beloved bays. Other organizations have succeeded at this including the Billion Oyster Project in New York Harbor and the Oyster Recovery Partnership on the Chesapeake Bay.

This past summer for the first time ever in the south Shore Estuary, Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program of Suffolk County successfully captured natural oyster spawn that set on their traps. This demonstrates that oyster spawn is surviving, settling and growing. This is called natural recruitment and represents only the beginning of habitat restoration efforts.

The key is to get to critical mass with regard to the multi millions and millions of oysters needed on the bay bottom in order to start realizing the change that other organizations have experienced. This is a long-term project but we're off to a great start.

Join us or start up a habitat restoration group in your community. We can help.

We thank Suffolk County Executive, Ed Romine, Brookhaven Town Supervisor, Dan Panico, and Councilman, Michael Loguercio and the entire Brookhaven Town Council for their steadfast support for habitat restoration efforts and initiatives all around our beloved bays.

A special thank you to The Gino Macchio Foundation, Save The Great South Bay, The Nature Conservancy, Seatuck Environmental Association, The Post Morrow Foundation and CEED for their inspired and dedicated support.

To the 500 plus residents including bayman, volunteers, donors and elected officials that signed the petition to support habitat, restoration efforts. We thank you from the bottom of the bay!

Great article in Newsday today! Highlighting our many partners at Shinnecock Bay Restoration Program, Ocean Beach, Fire Island , Islip, New York , Bayberry, Fire Island Ferries Inc.

LONG ISLAND NITROGEN ACTION PLAN
Long Island Water Quality Challenge 2023-2024

A STEM competition inviting middle and high school students to join the effort to tackle nitrogen pollution and improve water quality on Long Island

The Long Island Regional Planning Council is inviting Letters of Interest from student teams to create green infrastructure projects to reduce nitrogen on school grounds.

Top projects and teams may be honored at an awards ceremony with an optional $2,500 grant to implement student-designed projects.

Deadline for Letters of Interest: November 13, 2023
For more info, visit the link: https://lirpc.org/our-work/long-island-nitrogen-action-plan/long-island-water-quality-challenge/

FoBB is approaching setting 3 million oysters onto the bay bottom in the Brookhaven Town shellfish management area in Bellport Bay . We started in 2015 and this year we scaled up our operation to plant 1 million alone .

Our 10 year goal from now is to plant 30 million oysters which would be enough oysters to filter the volume of Bellport Bay once a day.

Here are some images capturing our habitat restoration initiatives over the 2023 season. We all worked hard and had fun doing so.

We always appreciate and want to thank our sponsors, our benefactors, our habitat restoration partners, and all the wonderful volunteers and interns that without we could not accomplish what we have.

A major fish kill is happening in Beaver Dam Creek along Post Morrow Foundation. (reader photo)