A recently published book on Coastal Seas (Dipper and Naylor, 2025, pp.123-124) says of ‘our native European Flat Oyster Ostrea edulis’ that ‘Reefs formed from oysters are now considered to be one of the most seriously threatened marine habitats in the world, and across Europe populations…have declined by 95 per cent since the 1800s. In many parts of the British Isles it is even worse, with their abundance considered to be around 1 percent of its former level.’
In this context, the recent re-discovery of live native oysters in Loch Nedd is certainly worth posting. They were found by Benjamin McTaggart of Glenleraig on a very low tide on 8th October 2025, in shallows at the mouth of the River Leireag (NC1431, photo 1). The sandy bottom at this point is strewn with dead shells (photo 2), with at least one mature live individual (photos 3-4), which he photographed and replaced. However, there may be more living examples further out in the loch.
Reference: Dipper F. and Naylor, P., 2025. Coastal Seas. Bloomsbury, London: British Wildlife Collection
Recent history
Loch Nedd has harboured live oysters for a long time. Most recently, examples were found by members of the Maclean family on 4th April 2012, when they collected and later replaced a ‘bucket of huge live oysters’.
Robin Noble informed me (in 2022) that ‘in the 1960s we searched during one very low tide and found dozens of shells’ including ‘one which was almost certainly alive; complete shell, tightly shut. It was quite large, maybe 4 inches across, the shell all green’.
‘At the time we were told that a number of the bays, including Ardvar, had been good places for native oysters, but that they had, at some stage, succumbed to an infectious disease’. This information was from local sources, corroborated by Robin’s grandfather, W. J. M. Menzies, who was Chief Inspector of Salmon Fisheries for Scotland.
Older history
Malcom Bangor-Jones has recently sent me a series of fascinating transcripts from the Sutherland family papers, now housed at either at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) or Stafford Record Office (SRO), which he has been researching for many years. They cover a period of some seven years nearly a century earlier (1866-1872), and have been numbered here for reference purposes.
1. NLS Acc.10225/211 f.1029 Evander McIver to G Loch 19 March 1866
[Sand banks at Clachtoll] fast drifting away…I would send some bent plants from Durness and try the effect of this and some turfing … has blown over the road…Arranged cleaning of oyster beds at Loch Inver, Loch Nedd and Ardvar. Will do same at Loch Laxford
2. NLS Acc.10225 Scourie ledger No 1 1861-1873
July 1866 Oyster beds
Cleaning beds at Laxford, Loch Inver, Ardvar and Nedd
Planting from Nedd and Ardvar in Loch Laxford
3. NLS Acc.10225 Scourie vouchers 1866
cleaning oyster beds Loch Laxford
Raking sea ware of oysters ground in Lochinver
ditto Ardvar and Loch Nedd
4. NLS Acc.10225 Scourie vouchers 1867
oyster samples to London
cleaning oyster beds incl Loch Inver
5. NLS Acc.10225 Scourie vouchers 1868
Angus McLeod oysters lifted Loch Nedd and Ardvar and discharged at Laxford River
6. NLS Acc.10225/2000 John Mackenzie Nedd to E McIver 27 Oct 1868
encl list of those clearing the oyster beds at Loch Ardvare and Loch Nedd
7. SRO D593/K/1/3/58 E McIver to G Loch 23 December 1870
Enquiry by John Sutherland, Lybster about breeding of oysters in Loch Eriboll. “I think if any intelligent person respectable person could be got to try the experiment of breeding oysters in Loch Eriboll The Duke should willingly agree to it. There are a very few oysters at the mouth of the Polla water – but they are far from numerous – and have never been so since I knew it [1845-]…”
“We have watched carefully now for several years the oyster beds at Ardvar, Nedd, Loch Inver, and Loch Laxford – and oysters are not now more numerous now than they were before. The ground on which oysters thrive is so limited at all these places that there never will in my opinion be any quantity fit for export or commercial purposes at any of them. There must be a mixture of fresh and sea water where oysters are produced and thrive – and the ground on which they are found is neither soft nor sandy – nor very hard. In all our lochs it is either a stony or muddy bottom – neither of which are fit for or conducive to the rearing of oysters.”
“I collect a few yearly for Dunrobin and also for Loch More – but that seems to be about as much as Nedd, Ardvar, and Laxford produce – while at Loch Inver there are so few – and these so small as to be scarcely worthy of attention.”
8. NLS Acc.10225/1943 f.6 E McIver to John Mackenzie wood watcher Nedd 30 August 1872
Collect oysters and send good supply to Duke at Dunrobin per mail gig from Lochinver on Thursday 5 and Saturday 7 September. “Send each time as many as a man can carry. As they are intended to be used when the Queen is at Dunrobin, be very careful.”
9. NLS Acc.10225/1943 f.25 E McIver to T Mackay GO Bracklach 14 September 1872
Ask Mackenzie to report if more oysters can be got either at Nedd or Ardvar and also what quantity of mussels for bait could be supplied from these or other places – “there being much enquiry for them from the East Coast.”
10. NLS Acc.10225/1943 f.88 Donald MacLeod lobsters from Loch Inver for Queen:
NLS Acc.10225/1943 f.96 D MacLeod £1 3 4 and J Mackenzie for oysters 9/6
Comments
After such a chequered history, it is good that live native oysters are still present in at least one local sea loch. Given all the development that has occurred over the last century, ground suitable for oysters may not now exist around Lochinver. The hydrology of Loch Ardvar may also have been affected by the blasting of rocky reefs at its mouth that took place during the time that the salmon farm was based there.
Just outside Assynt waters, a further transcript from the Sutherland papers made by Malcolm Bangor-Jones, dated 8th October 1873, indicates that Murdo Kerr of Lochinver had located oysters at five sites in Lochs Glendhu and Glencoul. His request for permission to sustainably harvest them was later turned down by the estate.
There is a recent record mapped for native oysters somewhere in these two sea lochs in The Marine Mollusca of West Scotland and the North Coast of Ireland. Checklist and Atlas (S.M. Smith and Nunn, J.D., undated but post 1988), but I have not been able to find any other records for the Assynt coast.
Are there any divers who would like to clarify the extent of the population in Loch Nedd, to aid their conservation?
Ian M. Evans