A Tisbury recreational scalloper will be allowed to continue using homemade drags with teeth this season while the town discusses new regulations to protect eelgrass in ponds.

While backing a plan by the shellfish committee to regulate the types of drags allowed in the town waters, Tisbury selectmen last week granted Albion Alley 3rd a grandfathered right to use his current drags for the season which ends March 1. No other scallopers are allowed to add teeth to their drags.

Shellfish constable Danielle Ewart had asked the selectmen to place a moratorium on drags with teeth for the remainder of the scalloping season while the shellfish committee works to draft regulations. Ms. Ewart said teeth, which rake into the ground, damage eelgrass, which is an important plant for pond health. Eelgrass is already struggling in Island ponds due to excess nitrogen.

“This is not a new concept,” she said. “Other towns on Island don’t allow [drags with teeth] and other towns on the Cape also don’t allow this.”

Her request was backed by harbor master Jay Wilbur and shellfish advisory committee chairman James Sullivan. The shellfish committee as yet to discuss the issue.

Mr. Alley said he has been fishing the water for 44 years. His father invented the drags in 1970 and they do not damage live eelgrass, he said.

“My pins do not touch the bottom, I can show you,” he said. Brandishing a quahaug rake, he attested that the fingers on his drag are not nearly as damaging as the quahaug rake.

But selectman Melinda Loberg said while quahauggers are limited in where they can reach, scallopers can harvest all over the ponds.

“It concerns me that we might be permitting damage everywhere, rather than just in a small area,” she said.

Lynne Fraker, a commercial scalloper since the 1990s, urged the town to explore alternative drags as they consider new regulations.

“The committee needs to do a little bit more in general about damage to eelgrass,” she said. “Nitrogen has made the pond weak, so the eelgrass can’t come back. There used to be 30 scallopers out there.”