Dredging seed oysters in the upper St. Mary’s River in 1966 – Captain Art Daniels maneuvers the heavily laden skipjack City of Crisfield while the buyboats Sarah Conway and Carol Ann watch from a distance. Some days back in the sixties as many as fifteen schooners could be seen dredging in the St. Mary’s River.
On Thursday, December 10 members of Save our Sanctuary (SOS) and the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association attended a meeting to learn how to be good stewards of our oyster sanctuary. Maryland permits oyster aquaculture operations within the sanctuaries. This creates a concern because the public has little ability to determine whether authorized operations or poaching is happening when they see work vessels out in the sanctuary.
The talk, “Catch a Poacher,” was presented by Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DNR staffers, Karl Rascher and Katie Busch, handed out information and talked about who to contact if we think someone is poaching. They also listed some of the regulations the aquaculture lease holders must follow (including a 48 hour notification to DNR before dredging on private leases with a sanctuary), and how DNR is watching the sanctuaries by camera. They discussed the monthly reports that lease holders must turned into DNR. Those reports track the work being done on the lease area and if no work is done (or reports are not sent in) for an entire year, the lease will be revoked. This is a new regulation and has already been implemented a few times.
One of the frustrations for those attending was that there is no list of the boats that will be working leases in the St. Mary’s River. Attendees were told to watch for “normal” activity and then report any deviation from that activity. When in doubt, though, all are asked to call the Poacher Hotline at 1-800-635-6124. Give a description of the vessel and , if possible, report the license number which is usually displayed on the side of the hull or cabin.
