BSAC is delighted to welcome its Operation Oyster partners on board who are all actively involved in the restoration of the UK’s native oyster populations.
The Zoological Society London (ZSL)
ZSL is an international conservation charity that works through its scientific projects and field conservation as well as citizen engagement through its two zoos, ZSL London and ZSL Whipsnade.
Its ZSL 200 strategy aims to address the challenges of habitat loss, disease, the illegal wildlife trade, pollution and other human effects faced by wildlife today.
The Native Oyster Network – which ran 2020’s Native Oyster Quest photography competition - was co-founded by ZSL and University of Portsmouth.
Images taken by UK divers exploring our complex marine world will allow us to gather important information about native oysters while sharing the beauty of our oceans in a way that’s not been possible before.
– Celine Gamble, Zoological Society of London Project Manager and Visiting Researcher at University of Portsmouth
University of Portsmouth (Institute of Marine Sciences)
The university’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) is an internationally known marine station providing high-quality marine research and teaching and has remained at the forefront of marine biology for over 70 years.
The Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE)
The Blue Marine Foundation is a London-based charity dedicated to restoring the ocean by addressing overfishing, securing marine protected areas and restoring marine habitats.
It was founded in 2010 and has numerous projects around the world, including the Solent Oyster Restoration project.
Operation Oyster provides an unprecedented opportunity to get boots on the ground, or fins in the water, on a geographic scale that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. The results will hopefully enable more restoration projects to be established around the UK over the coming years.
– Dr Luke Helmer, BLUE
Seawilding
Seawilding is a Scottish Seawilding is a Scottish Charity actively working to restore degraded inshore marine habitats. They work with coastal communities to enhance biodiversity, improve water quality and sequester carbon.
Seawilding aims to advance the environmental protection and improvement of Scottish coastal waters by developing and delivering projects to restore degraded marine habitats and species, including native oysters and other priority marine features around coastal shorelines.
