August 10, 2013 — BARNSTABLE, Mass. — On Cape Cod, farmers say oyster theft, the peculiar purloining of mollusks from underwater bags in which they are grown, is an increasingly common problem. There were at least four reported oyster thefts last year, said Amy Mahler, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Environmental Police, and this summer has already seen two large heists: 3,000 oysters were stolen two weeks ago from Barnstable’s Marstons Mills River, and 20,000 were stolen in July from Crowes Pasture in Dennis, where 31 farmers grow the shellfish.
No one knows the exact appeal of stealing oysters, but most theories suggest they are stolen to be sold, either directly to vendors or to farmers who own plots in the harbor where the oysters can continue to grow.
Here and elsewhere on the Cape, oyster season is popular and lucrative. An oyster can sell for up to $3.50, and families who own plots can make more than $50,000 a season, enough that farming can be a full-time job or a viable income supplement.
John Lowell, who runs the East Dennis Oyster Farm in Crowes Pasture with his wife, Stephanie, divides oyster theft into two categories: “retail theft,” when locals or tourists snag a few dozen oysters from plots to eat, and the rarer and more premeditated “wholesale theft,” which involves taking a boat out and stealing thousands of oysters (and sometimes also farming gear) to sell.
Both types, he said, go “beyond mere poaching.”
“These thieves are helping themselves to our harvest,” said Lowell, who is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone with information on the recent Dennis theft. “Sometimes, it takes as long as three years to grow oysters large enough to be marketable, so a theft can be quite devastating.”
Read the full story at the Boston Globe