01/08/2019 SHELLFISH COMMISSION Minutes

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day after Fisher contacted the wholesaler and questioned the oyster sale for the 17th Thompson had also sold 2,500 pieces from Falmouth water during this time frame. For the dates of 11-29, 12-10, 12-12, 12-13, 12-17, and 12-18 Thompson was cited under C.M.R. 322 section 16.04 for taking oysters for commercial sale even though it is not permitted within the town regulations. At this time other diggers may also be involved in Mashpee that have taken and sold oysters to market. They will also eventually be cited under that same C.M.R." Fisher: "While reviewing our camera footage I also found Kenny Thompson and Carlton Hendricks harvesting oysters from our Mashpee Neck deposit area on February 28th 2018,which would have been from last year's oyster season." Thomas: "Are we missing oysters from our cages in the Mashpee River where our stock is located?" Fisher: "Yes, we are missing quite a bit in the southern most grow area in the Mashpee River. Some large deposits I have made at Mashpee Neck Landing have also been harvested at night, which was seen on our game cameras. Unfortunately, the resolution wasn't clear enough to get a license plate number" Marques: "Do we have any better cameras in place?" Fisher: "We only have game cameras, and the resolution is very poor. Also no images are taken at night unless motion is detected" Thomas: "Game cameras are not sufficient." York: "We do have cameras in the area but we did not have a camera at our new southern site where the oysters looked really perfect his year. There is a plan to get real time cameras once we can gain access to a signal hopefully from the proposed cell tower or the fire station." Holmes: "What is the commercial limit for oysters?" Fisher: "There is NO commercial oystering in Mashpee's waters." Holmes: "Shouldn't that have been a red flag at the wholesale market" Opie: "So, wholesale markets only look for three things when commercial permit holders come to market. They look for their state commercial permit, their state transaction card, and they also look to see that the shellfish have the proper tags. Wholesale dealers aren't up to speed on all the individual town bylaws. So they wouldn't know if an area is closed to harvest if it wasn't a mandated contamination closure." Holmes: "Where were all these oysters stolen and to what markets were they sold?" Opie: "It is still under investigation at this time."