12/15/2015 SHELLFISH COMMISSION Minutes

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,Prow.....'I,9 rn o Town of Mashpee Shellfish Commission 16 Great Neck Road North 1i rte' Mashpee, MA 02649 act," -1 MINUTES OF MEETING 12-15-15 Attendance: Peter Thomas, Brian Everett, Marcus Hendricks, Stephen Marques & Richard York. Public: Darryl Christensen and Richard Cook. Convene Meeting: 7:00 PM Public Comment: None Approval of Minutes: 10-20-15 Postponed. Shellfish Constable's Report: Bay Scallops — over 700 bushels harvested. Oyster harvest going well. Oyster seed in the Mashpee River (2,000 bags purchased with the CPC funds), and the new sites in Shoestring Bay (300 bags purchased with Barnstable County Cooperative Extension funds) grew very well. A few were about 3 inches at the end of the growing season. The 2 million quahog seed we purchased from the ARC hatchery last spring at the size of 2 mm had excellent survival and growth in the upwellers and trays. The largest were an inch. We could only find a few dead and the estimate of the total number planted was 2,386,000. We planted 1,386,000 (purchased with funds from shellfish permit fees) in the usual good bottom areas in Popponesset and Waquoit Bays, Great and Little Rivers, and Hamblin and Jehu Ponds. The other million (purchased with CPC funds) were planted in the Great River family area. We are still catching invasive green crabs in our traps this month with water temperatures around 40 degrees. At their meeting on November 16, the Board of Selectmen voted in favor of the management shellfishing closure of Waquoit Bay proper (not the rivers and salt ponds) from November 17, 2015 through April 30, 2016 for all shellfishing except scalloping (scallop season ends March 31) to protect shellfish seed as recommended by the Shellfish Commission. They also voted to issue Commercial Shellfish Permits to Benjamin Delman and Derek MacDougall as recommended by the Shellfish Commission. I gave a presentation on our oyster propagation program at the 6th International Oyster Symposium at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole on October 21 and attended the rest of the symposium. Old Business: Propagation 2016 — Oyster, quahog and bay scallop seeding planned.