GULF SHORES, Ala. — Coastal environmentalists are calling on residents to help with the restoration of reef sites in the way of oysters.

An upcoming workshop will educate residents about becoming an oyster gardener. The workshop will be held April 18 at 10 a.m. at the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau in Orange Beach. Previous volunteers can also have their cages repaired at the workshop.

Oyster gardeners are volunteers that help raise oysters, according to P.J. Waters, extension specialist for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. He said volunteers are needed to take part in an effort to restore reefs.

“The oyster reefs have been adversely impacted by the oyster drill which has been more active recently as a result of salinity,” Waters said. “The reefs we target for planting have also been degraded by storm damage, sedimentation.”

The oyster drill is a small predatory snail that preys on small shellfish, according to the Environmental Data Center of the University of Rhode Island.

Locally, the oyster drill lives all year in sea grasses and feeding in oyster beds.

Reefs in Mobile Bay are suffering as drills, crabs and the environment damage them.

That’s where oyster gardeners step in. To grow oysters you must have a wharf or pier on conditionally open waters.

Waters explained conditionally open waters are defined by the Alabama Department of Public Health and classifies the waters of Mobile Bay and surrounding areas as they pertain to shellfish harvesting.

“Waters considered conditionally open denote areas where, when open, shellfish harvesting is permitted, provided the fishing regulations established by the Alabama Marine Resources Division are followed,” Waters said.

Mobile Bay is classified as conditionally open. Check with the ADPH to see if your waterfront property is open.

A Master Oyster Gardener program is currently under development to allow those who aren’t on open waters to assist in the effort.

Those who have frontage on the appropriate waters can be an oyster gardener. Beginning in June or July through November, volunteers are asked to care for juvenile oysters and raise them into maturity. This entails weekly maintenance of the cage containing the oysters. Mud must be washed from the cage and any predators, like blue crabs and drills, should be removed. Oyster gardeners are also asked to shake the cage every week to keep the oysters from growing through it. Waters said the maintenance will take about 30 minutes every week — nothing compared to the impact it will make to the bay.

In November, as the oysters have reached their maturity, they are returned to the program and planted on reefs.

“We select planting sites that are unlikely to be harvested commercially or recreationally,” Waters said. “We want these oysters to stay in the bay and reproduce themselves to grow the reef site.”

To become an oyster gardener you must attend one of the two workshops being held. The second workshop will be May 2 at 10 a.m. at the Auburn University Shellfish Laboratory on Dauphin Island.

The workshops are hosted by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the Auburn University Shellfish Laboratory.

For more information contact P.J. Waters at 251-438-5690 or e-mail him at waterph@aces.edu.