Please join us for New Bedford Science Café, Tues., 11/4, from 6–8 p.m. at The Last Round Bar & Grille, 908 Purchase St., New Bedford. Free parking in rear of building.
Our guests will discuss “Ensuring Healthy Oysters; Best Growing Practices and The Reality of Regulatory Restraints.” Even though they hail from very different occupations, Dale Leavitt and Christian Petitpas sometimes strategize together over how to protect oysters.
Dale, an educator and aquaculturist, is co-owner of West Island Oysters, an operation located in Nasketucket Bay off Fairhaven where oysters are farmed year-round. During a good year, his farm, using a floating-cage system, might harvest up to one million oysters.
Yet there are times when Chrissy, Assistant Director at Mass. Division of Marine Fisheries and leader of the Shellfish Sanitation and Management Program, must intervene. It’s her job to notify oyster farmers of state-imposed emergency closures, whether due to algal blooms or pollution from sewer or oil spills. In the future, new buoy sensors might help reduce closures, which are often imposed without a clear reading of
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