Commercial bay scalloping and oyster seasons will be extended in Edgartown following a vote by the town select board Monday. Both will run until May 1.
An innovative partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group has created an oyster buyback program to help shellfishermen hurt by the pandemic.
The Selectmen of this town have granted a license to Mr. Peter West to plant, grow and dig oysters, in a certain part of Squash Meadow Pond, for 20 years. We are glad to hear this. The oysters grown on this Island are of a very superior quality, and we should not be surprised to learn of the complete success of the new enterprise.
In late winter, as the cold winds blow, the Edgartown Harbor is a quiet place, mostly populated by gulls, the Chappy ferry making its appointed rounds, and the occasional scalloper or oysterman.
On Katama Bay, oyster farmers are still working, tending their mesh cages. But due to dramatically depressed demand, most oysters maturing this spring will not be harvested.
Tisbury selectmen have continued until early April a hearing on Noah Mayrand’s application to farm oysters in a one-acre portion of Lake Tashmoo. It marks the first aquaculture permit application in town.
Oyster farming is no longer a promising trend but a vibrant reality and a million-dollar industry on the Vineyard, five members of the Island aquaculture community told a gathering at the Gazette newsroom Tuesday.
