For four days in April, members of the VSBW (VolkerStevin and Boskalis Westminster) team visited the Portsmouth Institute of Marine Science to take part in practical conservation led by Blue Marine Foundation.

These volunteers helped to clean oysters one by one, wiping off mud and grime, removing parasitic worms, and any other species that needed to be removed as part of the Biosecurity Measures Plan, before the oysters could be deployed into the Solent. With tens of thousands of oysters, it was no easy task.

Alongside cleaning the oysters, some were measured, recorded, and tagged for data collection purposes, better equiping the Blue Marine team for future work.

VSBW has sponsored the restoration of approx. 200 sq m of oysters this year, on top of their previous support of the same amount last year.