Fal Fishery Cooperative ready to start hatching 1,000,000 Cornish Native Oysters

After a month of putting the @SavingESTER concept together in January – ‘Ester’ is Cornish for ‘oyster’ – a two-month campaign through Crowdfunder saw the ‘all or nothing’ target of £8,755 achieved with just two days left.

Since then, founding director Chris Ranger and new non-executive director Zane Dutton-Tompson of the Fal Fishery Cooperative CIC have pulled out all the stops to deliver on a promise to those that supported the campaign and build a ‘micro shellfish hatchery’ inside the Fal Oyster Ltd Purification Centre at Mylor, known as Cornish Native Oysters.

Chris said: "Having got off to a great start with the funding in February I really wasn’t sure if we would reach the all or nothing target, especially when I had to cancel the 10-year celebration of the end-of-season Pop Up Gatherings at Skinner’s Brewery Tap – The Old Ale House due to Covid.

“It was a devastating decision; Steve Skinner had sponsored the very first Oyster Gathering in 2010 and had kindly offered the indoor venue to celebrate 10 years.

"I had three chefs coming from London to host a Dinings Japanese Sushi Pop Up Restaurant, also Rosie Vanier was booked to perform on the Sunday to celebrate the start of British Summer Time and all profits going in at the end of the fundraising campaign."

Chris Ranger

Luckily, with help from Cornwall Marine Network, which secured two small grants for the CIC and Fal Oyster Ltd, Chris managed to loan the campaign enough to get past the target, just in time.

The funds finally arrived in early April, but at that point almost all businesses were closed and staff were furloughed.

Zane said: “It took a lot longer to get the equipment ordered and delivered, but by mid-May we were almost there.

“After a few weeks of preparing the 20ft shipping container, including a whole new electrical installation by a local sole trader who worked on his own one day, the set up was all but complete.”

Chris added: “There is a lot more to the native oyster and its reproduction cycle than you might think and unfortunately we were not quite ready for the new moon in May.

"However, we think we are now ready to start the first trial and I am sure it is going to be a steep but very exciting learning curve for the next two to three months.”

Chris and Zane are preparing to initiate the first hatching of Cornish Native Oysters on the next new moon, June 21, from brood stock that Chris gathered himself aboard his boat during the 2019-20 season.

He said: “I have done all the scientific research I can for the past year and fingers crossed we have all the necessary equipment installed thanks to the support from the 80 or so people that donated in phase one, so it is time to get on with the hatchery and spatting ponds to hopefully help at least a million oysters survive the larvae liberation stage and metamorphosis through to spat (baby oyster) of about 5mm.”

He has now launched phase two of the campaign.

Chris said: “In July 2019 we secured the only aquaculture site that was available on the River Fal and thanks to the National Lobster Hatchery at Padstow we have enough growing trays to start our nursery area, but now we have to raise the funding to install the infrastructure: moorings, ropes, buoys etc, so then we can relocate the 5mm spat to their natural habitat and study the growth for the next few years, while stored the new biomass should also increase the natural genetically strong population too.”

The CIC has been unsuccessful with five grant applications in the past year, mostly, Chris said, "because assessors do not understand the threatened populations of the species with 85 per cent to 95 per cent of worldwide stocks already gone, nor the strict regulations on marine habitats".

Chris believes the minimum landing size of 2in 5/8ths (67mm), which hasn’t changed since 1926, is destroying the biomass on the fishery, alongside the fact the two to four-year-old juveniles are mostly exported to fisheries in France or by a few oystermen to Colchester Oyster Fishery, to grow on, so leaving before they have fully matured and reproduced, which is "unfathomable”.

Chris and Zane missed out on furlough wages and were not eligible for grants and therefore have received no money during Covid-19.

With that in mind, they are asking people to spare a few pounds if they can at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/savingestertheoyster

Their message is: "We are still aiming to achieve the million things we have set out to do this summer, with at least 1,000,000 Cornish Native Oysters being hatched, reared and hopefully surviving the all important first few months, before heading up river to the Aquaculture Site nursery, so please help us with installing the infrastructure before #SavingESTER needs a home!”