Waterfront Director, William Smiley operates the crane on the Christchurch school boat to elevate oysters cages onto the dock. From there, as a group we transport the oysters to be sorted. 

As we examined the cages, we found many   smaller organisms such as baby flounder, seahorses, sea squirts and crabs. Savingthe aquatic life is an intertidal part of our program, so we took the time to pick them out and place them back in the water.  

The machine, also know as the sorter, consists of a rotating metal cylinder with many smallholes for small items to fall through. Once shoveled into the Sorter, water is heavily dispersed to clean the oysters.  Only half of the oysters in the cage are cleaned and sorted so they can be placed into another cage with room for them to grow.  

The underdeveloped oysters fall through the holes as the machine rotates. They fall into an separate container to be re-placed into the water to grown to their optimal size. Once the large oysters fall through the end of the tube into their growing cages, both cages are re-placed into the water to grow more.