September 7, 2015 — As traditional fish stocks in New England continue to decline and the industry endures greater restrictions, fishermen have been creating a new line of work: They are becoming farmers — shellfish farmers.
The cultivation of oysters and clams has become big business in Massachusetts, especially on Cape Cod, but the one source for the state’s $25 million aquaculture industry almost shut its doors.
From Oyster Seeds The Size Of ‘Pepper,’ A Family Business Grew
Myron Taylor is out on Wellfleet Harbor. He’s 74 and has been been raising clams and oysters here since he was a kid.
“And back in the old time when we had to pick up all the oysters seeds on the beach, in order to get them to grow, and it took about four years to get an oyster to grow,” he says.
Those wild oyster seeds Taylor picked up off the beach years ago were juvenile oysters and clams that he would plant in nearby waters. But that traditional method for growing shellfish was very slow and often did not yield much product. So like most fishermen on the Cape, Taylor caught cod, flounder and other groundfish to earn a living.
In the late 1980s, when those stocks became scarce, Taylor turned to lobstering. It was around that time he heard about some scientists in Dennis who were harvesting tiny clam seeds and selling them to fishermen to grow.
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