LOWER TOWNSHIP DISCUSSES AQUACULTURE POSSIBILITIES

Growing oysters in Lower Township could create jobs and become a brand associated with this area as much as falling leaves are connected with New England and jazz with New Orleans. At an Aug. 26 meeting of the Lower Township Economic Development Advisory Committee, Danny Cohen, president of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, discussed the future of aquaculture; the cultivating of shellfish and fin fish under controlled conditions. Rutgers Aquaculture Innovation Center (AIC) in North Cape May hatches oysters that are later transplanted into tidal flats in Delaware Bay. Delaware Bay has a long history of farming oysters dating back to the 1800s. Disease wiped out the natural population of oysters in the 1950s.