At the end of a dock in Auke Bay, an oyster farmer lifted a creaky hatch door on an unassuming floating platform. Inside were bins holding thousands of young oysters, called spat.
The platform is called a floating upweller system, or FLUPSY, and it’s one way oyster farms can keep more stock.
“This is just a cheaper way to buy spat in a smaller size, much bigger quantity,” said Maranda Hamme, owner of Shinaku Shellfish Company, a small, family-run Pacific oyster farm in Klawock. Hamme was part of a small group that visited Juneau for a day-long mariculture workshop organized by Alaska Sea Grant and the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska last week. See the full article here.