Lost oyster beds rediscovered thanks to Gaelic and Scots language

Long lost oyster beds on the West Coast of Scotland have been rediscovered thanks to Gaelic and Scots language.

Scientists searched for the inclusion of the Gaelic words for oyster or oysters – eisir, eisirein and eisirean – and oyster habitats like sandy banks or tidal causeways in place names around Scotland's coast.

They then found an oyster bed that had not been previously documented, as well as confirming oysters could have been present at other sites on Mull and Islay.

Native oysters were once abundant in coastal European waters, including Scotland, but now only remnant populations are known to remain due to overharvesting and disease.

Ecology and wildlife experts hope to use the discoveries to help rebuild oyster populations in suitable coastal locations.

The recent findings marked the culmination of several years worth of hard work, titled Project Eisirean.

It is a collaboration between ecology and environment researchers, Gaelic and education experts at the University of Glasgow and local community organisations on the west coast of Scotland.

Dr Anna McGregor, an expert in coastal ecology and a lecturer at the University of Glasgow , had the original idea of locating oysters through traditional place-names, then applying scientific techniques to confirm oyster presence within them.

She explained: "This is a really exciting outcome, for a project that started off looking for the historic distribution of oysters along the West Coast.

"We thought that as native oysters are now really rare throughout Europe, is there a way to look where they used to be, using people's memory and understanding - that can come through place names.

"We found two areas with oyster in the name, both on Mull, and after about two years we found another one on Lewis. Then we broadened the search to look for habitat related names, like sand banks."

The group then examined those locations for factors like the sea bed and the level of the water flow.

Dr McGregor hopes the team can build on their findings through continued work with local communities in Islay and Mull, alongside oyster bed restoration and protection work in key areas.

The research team will now trial the feasibility of a mobile oyster hatchery, in the hope it could both supply oyster larvae to coastal communities and help rebuild oyster beds in various areas.

The first mobile hatchery is being trialled in Millport, with plans to trial more in the future.

Dr McGregor said: "What we are hopping is to connect knowledge of the past, where shellfish was an important part of people's diets, to future improvement.

"We want to look where shellfish used to be, where communities had a connection with them, and develop that again.

"A small scale hatchery like this [on Millport] can be sustainable on an island, and really help people to connect with them.

"Seeing oysters life cycle can help people understand why it's important to keep them in the wild, and then get the numbers back up to levels where we can harvest them for lots of purposes."

The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance – NORA – coordinates projects across Europe to enhance the restoration of flat oyster reefs.

Hein Sas, the secretary of NORA, said: "The Eisirean project can serve as an example for other projects on how cultural heritage can help to identify suitable restoration sites."