[heavy machinery engines buzzing]
- [Erin] Oyster sanctuaries are built
throughout the sounds of North Carolina,
mostly in Pamlico Sound.
There are about 15 of them, currently,
in the state of North Carolina.
And the idea is that they are these
broodstock sanctuaries, where we have
adult oysters that spawn and reproduce
and help to seed our wild oyster beds,
as well as our shellfish managed areas.
- [Narrator] And so more than 70 tons of granite
will be used to construct
a 50-acre oyster reef in Pamlico Sound.
[gravel rumbling]
The stone is mined in North Carolina,
and loaded on to barges in Morehead City.
It's the latest effort
by the North Carolina Coastal Federation,
as well as state and federal agencies,
to restore oysters, and oyster reefs,
to North Carolina's coastal waterways.
- We're able to build 10 acres
of oyster sanctuary, as well as
some of the managed oyster areas around,
they're called cult-planting sites.
So there will be 10 acres of the oyster sanctuary
and about 40 acres of those managed oyster reefs
that will eventually be open to harvest.
[boat motor revving]
- [Narrator] Pamlico Sound is roughly 80 miles long,
20 miles wide,
and 20 to 25 feet deep.
It is the largest sound on the East Coast.
[majestic music]
But look under water.
- [Erin] What we're seeing, on average,
at the sanctuary sites, is about
one million oysters per acre.
So for every acre of oyster reef that we create,
every acre of oyster sanctuary that's being built,
we have about a million baby oysters on them.
- [Narrator] Once a haven is built
for the oysters to repopulate,
Mother Nature does the rest
in the spring and the fall,
once the water temperature hits 68 degrees.
- So the idea is that
these oyster sanctuaries are protected,
and the oysters produce, you know,
adult oysters that then spawn,
and their baby oysters then are
floating around in the water.
So once an oyster spawns,
the baby oyster will float for about two weeks
before it needs to find a place to settle.
And so these sanctuaries are strategically
located so that the currents help
to distribute the oysters
to these managed oyster beds,
as well as to the wild harvest areas.
- [Narrator] There are 15 artificial oyster reefs
scattered around Pamlico Sound.
This wild island project is the newest
and the largest.
- We space them out in appropriate distances
so that, essentially, whatever occurs
on the site, spills over
into the adjoining sites,
and essentially we develop this oyster network,
or sanctuary network,
or some even are calling this oyster highway.
It's the conductivity, this connectivity
in all of our estuaries.
The oysters become this complex,
three-dimensional structure on the bottom
where fish and invertebrates
and they utilize, they all aggregate
and come to that habitat
to grow, to eat, to seek refuge,
and they just kind of all aggregate there.
- The story goes that
when European settlers first came to North Carolina,
the sounds were so prolific with oysters
that you could drop a gold coin in the water
and see it go all the way down
to the bottom of the sound, 26 feet down,
that's how clear the water was
with all of the oysters filtering the water,
and there were oyster beds throughout the sounds.
Over the years, they were harvested,
and since then, oyster harvest has declined.
Partially because of the overharvest,
but also due to storms and disease and predation,
as well as the habitat destruction
that has occurred on the land
and has an impact on our oysters in the sound.
- [Narrator] About 250 acres of oyster reef
have been built.
The long-term goal is to double that,
and provide oysters a strong foundation on which to grow.
The health of the coastal economy
and coastal ecosystem depends on it.
- Oysters are critically important to North Carolina.
They're what's known as a keystone species.
- [Kenneth] Oyster populations are important
to maintain water quality in the state.
They maintain fish populations,
they maintain recreational opportunities,
they maintain those commercial opportunities.