Feasibility study on oyster farming

In the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park, oysters are farmed since 1979. These are Pacific oysters (Magallana gigas). Oyster seed is so far imported from abroad and grown to market size in the Wadden Sea off the island of Sylt. The young oysters mainly originate from Ireland and partly Great Britain.

Whereas a special permit for oyster farming in the National Park exists under state fishery legislation (§ 40 Abs. 4 LFischG), the National Park Act does not allow to introduce plant or animal species which are not native to the National Park (§ 5 Abs. 1 S. 2 Nr. 2 NPG).

This mainly concerns the introduction of alien species into the National Park including the accidental introduction of hitchhiker species with imported oyster seed.

The study therefore investigated ways to initiate changes in oyster farming to avoid a possible introduction of non-native species.

Since 2019, BioConsult SH accompanies the testing stage of different alternative approaches.