its not just a BL issue but state wide, its just more noticible at BL because it is more sensative to changes in the environment
in my opinion oyster dredges are the new gill nets and need to be treated as such and banned. they should be made to go back to tongs or hand collecting of oysters so you don't tear up the environment doing it and devoiding whole areas of oysters. these boats work an area until they can no longer find enough oysters to fill the bottom of the basket before moving to a new area, there is no sense of leaving anything for the next crop. they strip areas bare and come back later to reseed just in planned zones to be raked at a later date. there is never any intent or willingness to replace what is taken, its just about planting a bed of seed oysters in one spot to strip bare again like planting a garden.
everywhere I see oyster dredgers working there is never good fishing in that area again because there is nothing left but soft overturned bottom muck that has nothing to support life or hold fish.
even the crabbers move their traps out of the area after the dredgers scrape the bottom clean because it leaves a dead area behind that even the crabs avoid.
if nothing else these dredgers should be made to seed 10 sq miles of public unleased land for every 1 sq mile they dredge.
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