Maryland Watermen Resist Oyster Moratorium

The population of oysters is so low that several scientists recommended a complete halt on harvesting 

The Chesapeake Bay's oyster population has plummeted since the late 1960s, when Willy Dean, a Maryland waterman since the age of 17, would go hand tonging with his father and "load the boat with oysters."

"The catch is way, way down from what it was back then," Dean said.

The population is so low that several scientists recommended a complete halt on oyster harvesting in a study published in August by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. But a moratorium has not gained traction among watermen and state officials, who see the industry as an important tradition and a small but significant part of the state's economy.

"People would have to get other jobs, leave the business. And once they leave, they don't come back," said Casey Todd, manager of Metompkin Bay Oyster Company, which operates an oyster shucking house in Somerset County. "You can bring the oysters back but you're not going to bring these people back," he said.

That would mean the end of what Todd and others see as an integral part of Maryland's culture and history.

"We've been doing it for generations. My great-great-great grandfather did it," Todd said.

Incidentally, one of the sad things the watermen don't like to recall is that most of their ancestors moved to the Chesapeake Bay from New York - after they had wiped out the local oysters there to the point that they could no longer commercially fish them.  Where will they go next?

It's simply the worst possible management to continue to try to harvest oysters when the population is less than 1% of their former abundance.  We need a moratorium now.