Watermen Plot Pilfering of Penultimate Oysters

Oyster season may be gloomy as Oyster Season Opens

When oyster season starts today, most watermen will continue doing what they've been doing all summer -- catching crabs.

"It's guaranteed money," said Danny Webster of Deal Island.

Eventually, they will switch over when crab season ends in November, but they aren't excited about the outlook for this year's oyster harvest.

"We don't think there's much out there," Webster said. "We're not optimistic."

Generally, watermen can tell how a season will be by the number of baby oysters they see the year before --and last season there weren't many, he said.

While Tangier Sound remains one of the areas where oysters seem to thrive, the few remaining oyster beds in the upper Chesapeake Bay may suffer the effects of recent storms.

After Tropical Storm Lee, flood gates on the Conowingo Dam were opened, letting an estimated 4 million tons of sediment from the lower Susquehanna River watershed into the bay."That's a valid concern," said Mike Naylor, assistant director of fisheries for the Department of Natural Resources. "It's likely a lot of sediment fell on those oyster beds."

So, even though the expected harvest is below even the short term average, which is far, far below the former number in the bay, watermen, with the collusion of the state, will continue the harvest.

It's long past time to call an end to the farce, and ban wild oyster harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay, at least for five years, to see if natural reproduction, and restoration efforts can even start a recovery process.