All commercial oyster harvesting in Wareham banned

As of Tuesday night, commercial oyster harvesting in Wareham is no longer permitted.

The Board of Selectmen voted 3-2 at their meeting Tuesday night to immediately ban all commercial oyster harvesting, after hearing Wareham Harbormaster Gary Buckminster's argument that it will help preserve oyster populations that have been depleted from past years' commercial harvests.

The ban on oyster harvesting only impacts entities or individuals with commercial licenses, of which six were issued last year, according to Buckminster. Recreational oyster fishing will still be permitted for individuals who wish to harvest for individual consumption.

There were six commercial oyster harvesting licenses issued last year, according to numbers collected by the Harbormaster. With those licenses, there were an estimated 68,633 oysters harvested commercially at a $30,000 profit.

Buckminster said that those oyster fishermen who are serious about making profit are still welcome to apply for oyster fishery grants to farm in areas designated by the Town.

Selectman Judith Whiteside felt it was “unfortunate that we don't seem to learn as human beings that nothing lasts forever."

"While I am unhappy you are making this recommendation, I fully support your recommendation because I believe the natural resources we have will continue to clean the waters of our bays,” Whiteside said.

Selectman Stephen Holmes expressed concerns about the individuals that would be impacted by a vote from the Board.

“I have an issue with business people getting nailed,” Holmes said. “It's a big impact to the area. Not being able to offer than an option bothers me.”

“There's nothing I can do to offer an alternative,” Buckminster said. “Fishing is a gamble. You don't know what you're coming back with. We have a depletion of the stock, do we keep hitting it, until there's nothing left?”

Chairman Patrick Tropeano questioned Buckminster's methods of management, and why his recommendation didn't offer a solution to apply limits in amounts or percentages that could be harvested per year.

“I know there's a way to come up with a number to say, 'Well this is how many we can take this year’, and set that number as the goal," Tropeano said. "To just take a moratorium – to take people's livelihoods away from everyone? That's not management.”

Buckminster argued that preservation is, in fact, management.

“If you don't manage it, you're just throwing it out of the window," Buckminster said. "We are preserving for tomorrow. We're not just fishing for today.”

Buckminster also mentioned the possibility of aquaculture funding possibly coming to Wareham from monies related to Buzzards Bay’s Bouchard Oil Spill in 2003, which would be used for the creation of an oyster reef.

Prior to the commercial oyster fishing vote, the Board voted in favor of Buckminster's recommendation to make no changes this year on the current regulations in place for soft shell clam fishing.