Połów ostryg - Redux

An oyster cage identification band (pink) lays in water in the boat of oyster farmer Matt Loo of Round Island Shellfish as he harvests oysters from his Nasketucket Bay oyster farm in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, on Thu., May 20, 2021. Loo says the identification bands are not yet required to be used by farmers, but he has started doing so recently because of errant equipment from other farmers washing up on nearby shores. Loo has been farming his one-person, three-acre operation since 2012, and estimates he spends five hours at his farm four days a week. He works at a larger oyster operation on Cape Cod on other days. During the coronavirus pandemic starting in 2020, Loo says his sales were off by 30 to 40 percent. "It went from 'Oh wow, this is gonna be a great year to restaurants closed. Nobody's buying anything," he says. The oysters harvested are what Loo calls "less than desirable." Due to the drop in demand during the pandemic, Loo had to crowd cages, which led to misshapen oysters or poor shell development, which makes them unsuitable for commercial sale. Loo ordinarily sells his oysters to commercial wholesalers, but the oysters harvested on this day have instead been purchased for use in the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration program partnership between The Nature Conservancy, Pew Charitable Trusts, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. These oysters, approximately 12,000 from this farm on this day, and another 37,000 oysters from the same farm late last year, were relocated to the Little Bay in Fairhaven, Mass., as part of a 1 acre pilot program to restore lost oyster reefs and increase filtration of the water.