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Long Island Students Join The Nature Conservancy And Western Suffolk Boces To Restore Shellfish In Local Waters

KeySpan Foundation Underwrites Effort which Fosters Hands-on Learning Experience for Students with Positive Conservation Results

Cold Spring Harbor, NY — January 31, 2007 — If you see teenagers on the beach this spring, don’t report them to the truant officer–they may be engaged in important conservation work. The Nature Conservancy and the Outdoor Environmental Education Program, a service of the Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) are working together to engage high school students in shellfish restoration work on Long Island.

Hard clams and other shellfish play an important role in Long Island’s bays – filtering water and serving as a critical link in the food web.  Without them, water quality suffers and the entire ecosystem is affected.  Restoring native shellfish populations is a pillar of The Nature Conservancy’s marine conservation work on Long Island.

The BOCES program, now in its second year, aims to restore Long Island’s depleted shellfish populations, not only a food source, but also a way to improve ecological conditions in Great South Bay.  North Babylon High School students will grow baby clams in Stony Brook Harbor within nursery rafts that they have constructed themselves as part of the program. The clams will be removed from the rafts and transported to harvest-free areas in Great South Bay where it is hoped they will live and reproduce.

“This program provides students with a year-long curriculum that teaches about Long Island’s rich maritime history, local shellfisheries, hard clam biology, mariculture, and the health of our local bays. It is an opportunity to get outdoors and participate in a meaningful, large-scale restoration project,” said Dan Stenzler, the Outdoor Environmental Education Program’s instructor for this project.

The work/study project is underwritten by the KeySpan Foundation, whose ongoing support has helped contribute to The Nature Conservancy’s comprehensive efforts to restore hard clams to Great South Bay. To date, The Conservancy has stocked the Bay with more than 1.5 million clams. This successful program has been recognized on local, state, and federal levels and recently received $1,000,000 in support from Suffolk County.

“Our partnership with BOCES is a great opportunity for students to learn about and become good stewards of Long Island’s marine environment, while significantly contributing to the potential to restore water quality Island-wide,” said Carl LoBue, Atlantic Ocean Beaches and Bays Site Director for The Nature Conservancy. “We are thankful to our supporters, such as the KeySpan Foundation, whose ongoing backing of our shellfish restoration efforts helps make this partnership possible.”

The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 14 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 83 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. On Long Island, The Nature Conservancy has helped to preserve more than 100,000 acres.  Visit us at nature.org/longisland.

Western Suffolk BOCES, a regional educational service agency, provides quality, efficient, shared programs and services to school districts, their students, parents and communities. Our mission is to expand educational opportunities and alternatives enabling learners to achieve their potential.  The mission of its Outdoor Environmental Education Program is to inspire a child’s sense of wonder for the natural world and enhance classroom concepts through discovery learning. Learn more about the program at .