July 6, 2017 — Crabbers, seafood processors and state biologists agree that the most recent Dungeness crab season, which ended June 30 south of Mendocino County and will wrap up next week to the north, is above average.
While the lyric connotes cozy relations between the famously fertile shellfish of this bivalve capital, feelings among shellfishermen themselves are decidedly less friendly.
Locals describe them as the clam wars, with two sides waging a public battle for decades over rights and practices in Oyster Bay Harbor, which remains the most productive shellfishing habitat in New York State.
The dispute pits the baymen who hand-rake for clams against the Frank M. Flower & Sons shellfish company, which uses dredge boats to mechanically harvest the clams and oysters it farms on a swath of 1,800 acres leased from the Town of Oyster Bay.