Shellfish Group Struggles with Shortfall
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
The Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group is in the midst of a
financial crisis. Director Rick Karney is troubled; it means greater
hardship in an already difficult business of raising juvenile shellfish.
The Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group will be offering treats from Island waters at the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust's Taste of the Vineyard gourmet stroll this Thursday night. They'll have a booth featuring their flavorful Island-cultured oysters. This year, strollers will be able to compare oysters cultured in Menemsha Pond and oysters raised in Katama Bay.
Following the die off of juvenile shellfish at the Martha's
Vineyard Shellfish Group in recent weeks, there will be a summit of the
minds next Wednesday at the Tisbury Town Hall. Shellfish constables,
biologists, members of the Lagoon Pond Association and the Tisbury
Waterways Inc. will meet at noon to talk about the next step in
protecting the water quality in the pond.
The director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group said yesterday that nearly four million healthy juvenile shellfish under culture at his Lagoon Pond hatchery have died in the last three weeks because of extremely poor water quality in the pond.
The deteriorating water quality has not affected mature shellfish and there is no danger to humans who eat shellfish from the pond.
Shellfish May Survive Edgartown Oil Spill; Emergency Seen as Serious
Wake-up Call
By JULIA WELLS
The director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group said
there may be good news for a crop of about a million baby oysters that
were threatened by an oil spill in the Edgartown harbor early this week.
"I don't want to say that we are out of the woods
entirely, but the oysters may survive," said shellfish group
director Rick Karney on Wednesday this week.
Oil Spill in Edgartown Harbor Kills Million Baby Oysters and Fouls
Waters
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
An oil spill of unknown origin sullied the pristine water of the
outer Edgartown harbor yesterday, ruining an entire crop of juvenile
shellfish at a hatchery owned by the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish
Group and posing a possible threat to the rich bay scallop beds off the
north shore of Chappaquiddick.
The Katama Bay oyster is the talk of Island raw bars. Lovers of
seafood now have a local oyster available through most of the year. This
Island oyster is making its way across the eastern seaboard to
Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.
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.
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.
It is a record year for baby shellfish growing up at the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, but the 21-year-old institution is facing severe financial troubles, its worst in years.
There is another contradiction. The hatchery, highly regarded in the national aquaculture industry, the recipient of federal grants and accolades from the science community, is dealing with an image problem before Island town selectmen and financial committees. Town officials like the work but they don’t want to help it financially.
