Tisbury shellfish constable Danielle Ewart has a birthday wish, a new Dodge pickup truck for her shellfish department. She hopes to get approval to replace the nine-year-old truck at the annual town meeting on Tuesday, April 12, which is the day Ms. Ewart turns 29.

The troubled truck has driven over 92,000 rough-and-tumble miles. “Russ Maciel and Patrick Murphy, the town mechanics, have kept that truck running,” she said. “But, it has more problems.”

On March 16, Ms. Ewart celebrated her first year anniversary as Tisbury shellfish constable. She remembers the day after her appointment, feeling she might have problems too.

“I had a shellfish committee meeting [and] I felt like I was in over my head ... But everyone was so warm and welcoming.”

For the usually soft-spoken woman who grew up here and graduated from the regional high school in the class of 2000, this has been a year of discovering new friends. Stepping into the high-profile role of a department head in a town that prides itself in producing lots of bay scallops, Ms. Ewart looks back over the year and says, “It is pretty amazing.”

She is the first Vineyard woman to be shellfish constable, though there was at least one other female deputy shellfish constable years ago in Edgartown. “I think the fishermen are pretty okay with it,” Ms. Ewart said. “When I got the job, I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I am a woman.’ For me, I said, ‘I am young,’” she said. “I never, ever played the woman card.”

Recalling the trip last year to Fall River to pick up quahaugs, she said, “I am at the back of a dump truck with 80-pound bags of quahaugs, putting them in the back of the truck, to bring them to the Vineyard for the relay program. I never thought that this was hard because I am a woman. I thought it was hard because I was short,” she said.

Tisbury shellfishermen like her. Among the many cohorts that wander the waterfront, she’s “Danni.” She’s had little trouble getting the shellfishermen to step forward and help, whether it is moving gear or moving shellfish seed. The shellfishermen and the town shellfish department have a shared responsibility — taking care of the fishery.

Ms. Ewart already has spent years on the water, working in shellfish restoration projects. She started working for the Oak Bluffs shellfish department as a part-time deputy in 2004. Five years later she stepped into a full-time position for the town.

“When I worked in Oak Bluffs, I used to fly under the radar and get the job done. I went to no meetings. I only worried about a few things,” she said. She spent a lot of time out on the ponds.

But with this new job, it is quite different. “In the beginning I listened a lot,” Ms. Ewart said. “It is not easy being a boss. As a department head, you get scrutinized and the pressure is on you.

“I worry a lot more. When there is a storm, at night, I worry about the boat at the mooring. I worry about the rafts,” she said.

Support from around the community has risen with her presence; the fishermen know she cares. “I feel like I have wonderful people available to help me,” she said.

Some of the support came from within the town shellfish advisory committee. Ms. Ewart has high praise for the chairman, Steve Baccelli, and, she added, “Billy Sweeney has been there from the start.”

Her expertise was mostly in shellfish restoration projects, and working summers in the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group hatchery, so she admits she wasn’t so knowledgeable about the harvesting aspect of the fishery. “Billy showed me how he quahaugs,” using a special rig, she said.

“Billy was really a huge help. We went around the pond and he showed me the little spots where they go. My assistant shellfish constable, Michael Moore, also showed me. He had been working for the department for a year before I started.”

“I get a lot of support and a lot of cooperation,” she said. “I was happy in Oak Bluffs, so, I am glad I am [happy too] in Vineyard Haven.”

The Island’s shellfish constables all have been generous with their support too. Ms. Ewart said she has called upon them for another perspective on various issues and they’ve all been helpful.

Looking ahead, she wants to do more shellfish restoration; she would like to have a shellfish upweller for raising juvenile steamers. Last week she worked on building a new starfish mop drag for catching more predators. The drag is towed around like a scallop drag on the bottom and catches starfish. It works the same way as Velcro fabric. Starfish skin is rough and the mop snags them.

Starfish, crabs and conch are predators and are a big threat to shellfish. Last winter, during the bay scallop season, Ms. Ewart urged fishermen to harvest all the predators they collect while fishing and put them into a barrel at the end of the Lagoon Pond boat ramp dock. They filled the barrel several times. “I have a big thanks to the fishermen,” she said.

With the bay scallop season closing yesterday, Ms. Ewart shifts her attention to other bivalves. Fred Benson will step in as a deputy shellfish constable later this year to help. These are austere times and her department is one person less than it was more than a year ago. “There used to be two summer deputies, but the town has tried to get the harbor master department to help out,” she said.

With warmer weather the fishermen shift their attention to Lagoon Pond and Lake Tashmoo as sources for steamers and quahaugs. “Fred knows the ponds and he knows the people,” she said.

She’ll also spend some time revisiting the town’s two herring runs. Last year she made repairs to the herring run at the head of Lagoon Pond to give the fish a better chance to move from the saltwater head of the pond up the ladder into the freshwater pond. This spring she said she’ll also be working with the Tashmoo Preserve Task Force in their effort to improve the herring fishery in the freshwater pond at the head of Lake Tashmoo.

Schools of herring are expected, if they aren’t already here.