Monitoring by the Heriot-Watt scientific dive team as part of the Restoration Forth project has shown an average survival rate of around 88%.

A project to restore European flat oysters to their natural habitat in the Firth of Forth has seen one oyster double its expected growth size.

A three-year project to restore the species which had collapsed to the brink of extinction began last year, when mature European flat oysters were deployed across four sites in the Firth of Forth, with 46,780 oysters distributed since 2023.

European flat oysters were classified as “collapsed” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Ecosystems criteria due to over-farming and poor water quality.

The oysters were sourced from the Loch Ryan Oyster Fishery, in a project in

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