| 20 April 2009
"This group (Teen Anglers), is lined up to be the next generation to steward our local marine resources," said Jim Oppenborn
Jim Oppenborn, St. Lucie County Marine Resource Coordinator, led a team of about 20 Teen Anglers assisted by their parents and local businesses to set a new record in the Oyster Shell bagging project. "They bagged approximately 2 tons of shell in one hour -- a fantastic start towards bagging all the oyster shells needed for this summer's oyster reef projects, " said Jim. "The Teen Anglers produced about 100 bags before we ran out of bags - they were incredibly fast!" .
More about Teen Angler
Thanks to Al Bernetti for providing this info:
The National Teen Angler program is a free outdoors program for middle and high school teens.
They meet once a month during the school year for education sessions, then have a tournament each month as well for trophies and prizes. The volunteers provide boats.
The teens must maintain a 2.0 GPA, pass a boater safety course, and complete the education sessions to qualify to fish the tournaments.
Scholarships are awarded based on academic ability, not on how many fish they catch.Scholarships are awarded to teens going into fields in the outdoors.
We have 3 fundamentals- Safety-Education and Fun. If there are no fish left, then what! Fishing's Future: Teen Anglers -- Recreation and Education for the next generation.
www.teenanglers.org
Oyster reefs create habitat for creatures such as crabs, shrimp, invertebrates by the score and a myriad of forage fishes. They provide a ready food source for gamefish such as snook, trout, tripletail, macks and jacks. These underwater grocery stores also provide nursery habitat for many of the species of juvenile fishes such as snapper and grouper that grow up and migrate to offshore reefs.
Oysters are filter feeders and they improve water quality. Restoring oyster reefs in the Indian River and St. Lucie is an ongoing project coordinated by Jim and we salute Teen Anglers for taking part. We thank Jim for his leadership and for his effective works toward Indian River restoration.
McCulley Marine Services was there with a front end loader to transfer approximately 2 tons of shell onto a module construction table, bringing the work area up to waist height.
Special thanks to the St. Lucie County Erosion District for purchasing the bagging material.
Teen Angler coordinator Cammie Ward, and founder Al Bernetti organized the group of teens who are motivated to establish inshore and offshore reefs as fish habitat.
Thanks to the Teen Anglers (and parents) for helping with the project.
More about This Project
