Northeast Florida Oyster Collaborative Workshop

In Northeast Florida, oysters are a foundational species and highly valued for their ecosystem services. Several entities from across Northeast Florida (St. Johns River Water Management District, Florida Fish and Wildlife, Northeast Florida Aquatic Preserves, University of Florida) met at Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve recently for a workshop to plan standardized oyster monitoring for winter 2026. This regional effort spanning five counties from the Georgia line to Ponce Inlet will take place ten years after the first Oyster Condition Assessment and aims to assess how oysters and the reefs they form have changed over that period. Groups of researchers are “adopting” a total of 125 reefs to measure parameters such as reef height, reef thickness, live oyster density, and oyster sizes. Monitoring all the reefs will take a large, coordinated effort between several entities but the information gathered will give valuable insights to the oyster populations and habitats of Northeast Florida!