Following a small-scale trial last year, native oysters are being reintroduced to the Dornoch Firth, an area where they were fished to extinction more than a century ago. Dr Bill Sanderson, Associate Professor of Marine Biodiversity at Heriot-Watt, said: “This is the first time anyone has tried to recreate a natural European oyster habitat in a protected area. We hope to create an outstanding environment for marine life in the Firth – and act as a driving force behind other oyster regeneration work across Europe.” The native oysters, all grown in the UK, have been painstakingly cleaned and checked for disease and unwanted “hitchhikers”, and will be regularly monitored. The aim of DEEP (Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project – a joint enterprise with Heriot-Watt University, the Marine Conservation Society and Glenmorangie) is to ensure that sufficient numbers of oysters grow in the area to make the reefs truly self-sustaining. The project team will be studying how well the oysters fare, and their effects on the seabed around them.

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