How SOAR Turned Surplus Oysters Into a Restoration Engine

When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered restaurants across the U.S. in 2020, oyster farmers lost their primary market almost overnight, leaving them with millions of unsold oysters and putting years of work and investment at risk. At the same time, overharvesting, habitat loss, pollution, and disease have caused dramatic declines in wild oyster populations, leaving many so depleted that they can no longer replenish themselves through natural reproduction alone.

The Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR) program provided a lifeline for U.S. oyster farmers and wild populations alike, eventually expanding into a robust eight-state initiative to regenerate native reefs by buying unsold oysters from growers and replanting them for restoration.

And now, a new handbook, “Partnering With Oyster Growers to Rebuild Reefs,” outlines how communities can use the SOAR approach to help rebuild reefs, while benefiting growers and coastal ecosystems.

An idea with powerful impact

The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Nature Conservancy developed and implemented SOAR—with additional financial support from Builders Vision and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation—for the twin purposes of boosting oyster populations and sustaining the businesses that rely on them. But reef restoration also provides many other benefits. Oysters filter water and remove pollutants, and their reefs help protect shorelines from erosion and buffer coastal communities from increasingly severe storms. Oysters also are at the center of many Indigenous foodways and cultural practices.

Over six years, SOAR:

• Engaged over 150 growers to purchase more than 7 million oysters, including 1.4 million in farmer-grown spat on shell—clusters of baby oysters.
• Supplied oysters to 35 restoration sites to help regenerate more than 60 acres of native reefs.
• Supported more than 1,000 aquaculture and related jobs and demonstrated the important role oyster farms can play in ecosystem recovery.

The handbook distills this experience into a practical guide for funders, growers, and natural resource managers across levels of government. Along with case studies from multiple states, it lays out a development checklist, step‑by‑step implementation, and advice on forming partnerships, evaluating where farmed oysters can advance restoration efforts, and measuring the results for people and nature.

How the work unfolded on the water

SOAR’s innovative use of farmed oysters began in New Hampshire’s Great Bay, creating partnerships with New Hampshire shellfish farms and the University of New Hampshire to rebuild the bay’s reefs. Similar scenes unfolded soon thereafter in New Jersey’s Barnegat and Delaware bays, where SOAR coordinated buybacks and deliveries to nearby restoration sites, keeping multigenerational businesses afloat.

The program’s first months were fast paced. SOAR and its partners coordinated with relevant state agencies to establish restoration priorities and select suitable sites for the use of farmed oysters. The program also engaged with industry, academia, and restoration experts to set detailed eligibility criteria for participating growers, quality standards, inspection processes, deployment schedules that corresponded with oyster spawning and farming practices, and other key structural components of the work.

Highlights from SOAR’s purchase program included:

• Helping to facilitate the replanting of 85 bushels of oysters in Maryland’s St. Mary’s River.
• Partnering with the Squaxin Island Tribe and Puget Sound Restoration Fund in Washington state to replant about 71,000 adult native Olympia oysters in Palela Bay.
• Collaborating with local communities to create new reefs on Long Island in New York.
• Inspiring a project, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to engage New Jersey oyster farmers in restoration.
• Engaging with oyster farmers in Maine and Massachusetts on restoration efforts.
• Expanding its purchase program in 2023 to an eighth state, California.

A simple idea with broad implications

What began as an effort to connect oyster farmers and organizations working to restore native oyster reefs, evolved into an effective laboratory to test this restoration approach—and its potential to build a more resilient shellfish industry—on a larger scale than ever before. And through partnership and cooperation, SOAR was able to establish a successful initiative that advanced aquaculture as a meaningful tool in reef restoration. Now, the program has collected its lessons learned to provide a playbook that others can use as a foundation for building similar programs that leverage the skills and tools of the shellfish aquaculture industry to improve the health of coastal economies and ecosystems.

Zack Greenberg leads The Pew Charitable Trusts’ work with the U.S. aquaculture industry to rebuild marine ecosystems through the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration program, a joint effort of Pew and The Nature Conservancy.