The first time there was a war over the Chesapeake Bay’s oysters — in the 1800s — it started because there were so many of the shellfish. For a share of the fortune on the bay’s floor, watermen fought police and one another with rifles and cannons.
This year’s oyster war is being fought with cellphones, glow sticks, fast boats, and night-vision technology, but for the opposite reason.
Maryland, trying to protect a species whose ranks have declined by 99 percent, is cracking down on watermen who catch oysters in protected sanctuaries or with banned equipment. Over the winter, officers with the Maryland Natural Resources Police conducted undercover surveillance operations in small fishing towns and on rivers, hiding on patrol boats in the dark.
The blitz is welcomed by the Maryland Watermen’s Association, which says bad oystermen are figuratively stealing from good ones. But some caught in the dragnet said that a shortage of oysters and tighter state laws have pushed them to break rules.
Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.