Dark green and gray, slick with algae, pocked with parasitic scars and polychaete worm tunnels, wild oysters are survivors, fighting everything the pond's brackish waters throw at them.
If you ate a raw oyster last summer on the Vineyard, chances are it came from either Canada or Long Island. But for oyster lovers, the summer ahead offers another treat: the Vineyard oyster.
A bay scallop farming study is one of several projects in Dukes County funded by new state grants, aimed at bolstering the local shellfish industry in a time of climate change.
An insidious disease that afflicts oysters but is not harmful to humans is widespread in Edgartown Great Pond. While there are not yet any reports of die-offs, there is concern that at least a portion of the oysters in the pond will die.
A serious oyster disease that has afflicted Edgartown Great Pond for years is now in Tisbury Great Pond and it is expected to cause a major die-off in the months ahead.
The disease known as Dermo is not harmful to humans in any way but it is responsible for having caused the collapse of the oyster fisheries from Cape Cod to the Gulf of Mexico. The only cure, according to Rick Karney of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group would be a frigid winter. The parasite that causes the disease can’t stand bitter cold water.
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.
