Russia to establish first oyster spat hatcheries on the Black Sea

A group of Crimean businesspeople plan to start growing oyster (Ostrea) spat near Sevastopol under a technology recently developed by the Russian Academy of Science. The new technology was recently rolled out by the Kovalevsky’s Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas – a Crimean-based branch of the Russian Academy of Science. Vitaly Ryabushko, doctor of biological sciences and one of the project authors, explained that the demand for oyster spat is clearly on the rise in Russia. Currently, around 15 million oysters are consumed in Russia per year, and a growing number of them come from local farms. However, the entire spat supplies are coming from abroad, primarily the EU. “In Russia, until now, there was no technology for the production and growing of spat that took into account the peculiarities of local conditions: the level of salinity and changes in the temperature of the Black Sea,” Ryabushko said, explaining the rationale behind the project. The scientists claimed they ...