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.

The Tisbury select board unanimously approved changes to the town’s aquaculture regulations that will allow oyster farmers in Lagoon Pond to grow their crops closer to the water’s surface.

Shellfish farmers in Tisbury are lobbying for changes to town aquaculture regulations, hoping to gain more flexibility in permitted growing methods for oyster farms in the Lagoon.

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.

Oyster farmer Greg Martino won the Tisbury select board’s approval for a one-acre shellfish farm in Lagoon Pond this week, bringing to three the number of aquaculture licenses in town.

A sweeping new state report on ocean acidification recommends legislators take immediate steps to mitigate the impacts on the state aquaculture industry.

Two aspiring shellfish farmers were approved for Tisbury’s first aquaculture licenses at the select board meeting Tuesday night. Noah Mayrand and Jeffrey Canha both received licenses.

Top Shell Oyster Farm has met its initial crowdfunding goal to open a two-acre oyster farm in Edgartown.

Tisbury selectmen granted a second aquaculture license for town waters Tuesday, conditionally approving a license for Jeffrey Canha to raise oysters in Lagoon Pond.

On Katama Bay, oyster farmers are still working, tending their mesh cages. But due to dramatically depressed demand, most oysters maturing this spring will not be harvested.