Aquaculture

2009

December 3, 2009
scallops

Banner Season for Bay Scallops

Mark Alan Lovewell
Scallops
Aquaculture

Vineyard bay scallops, the Island’s biggest export this time of year, are at a premium.

Even though fishermen are coming ashore on the mainland with product, Roy Scheffer of Edgartown, a longtime commercial fisherman, said: “We have the nicest scallops. It looks like it is going to be a good Christmas.”

The price fell early in November, but it is back up now. At the market, fishermen can expect to get paid as much as $13 a pound for their shucked product. Consumers can expect to pay close to $17 a pound retail.

October 29, 2009
Tim

Blue Mussel Farm Planted at Sea, Raising Hopes for Future Fishery

Mark Alan Lovewell
Aquaculture
Blue mussels

The Vineyard’s first experimental blue mussel farm began operating in waters off Cape Higgon in Chilmark this past week.

Two weeks ago fishermen suspended a 500-foot cable 30 feet underwater in Vineyard Sound. Last week they hung lines on the cable that were loaded with juvenile blue mussels, held to the line by a biodegradable fabric called socks.

If the project is successful, by the end of next year the mussels will be marketable.

April 23, 2009

Aquaculture Stimulus

Shellfish
Aquaculture

Aquaculture Stimulus

We have seen the future and this is it: American oysters, bay scallops, blue mussels, quahaugs and softshell clams, thriving by the thousands in natural nurseries that are the coastal ponds and embayments of the Vineyard. The nurseries are aided by the able work of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, which grows millions of seed shellfish and provides them to the towns for sowing — both in the wild and in saltwater farms tended by entrepreneurial fishermen.

March 5, 2009
farm

Experimental Mussel Farm Proposed

Mark Alan Lovewell
Aquaculture
Blue mussels

A bowl of steamed blue mussels is among the most valued culinary seafood dishes on the Island. Just about every restaurant that serves seafood offers the bivalve. But all of the mussels consumed on the Island comes from afar, nearly all from Canada. But in the years ahead the popular shellfish may be raised and harvested here.

2008

November 20, 2008

Pond Stock Rising

Aquaculture
Scallops

Pond Stock Rising

The late Foster Silva, longtime superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations on Chappaquiddick who loved to tell perfect strangers that he had received his degree from Katama University, had an opinion on the subject of bay scallops. Cape Pogue scallops, he said, were the sweetest. No arguments.

November 13, 2008
bay scallop bounty

Bay Scallop Fishery on the Rebound

Mark Alan Lovewell
Aquaculture
Bay scallops
Fisheries

The Vineyard bay scallop season is underway and the news is mostly good for local consumers and commercial fishermen alike. Chilmark is having one of its best seasons in years; Edgartown is having one of its worst. Oak Bluffs and Tisbury are doing fine and on Monday another banner year is set to open in Aquinnah.

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