Maryland officials placed new restrictions Monday on harvesting wild oysters this fall and winter but dropped a plan to shorten the season that had drawn fire from watermen and seafood dealers.
Instead of delaying the opening of the harvest season, the regulations posted online by the Department of Natural Resources trim the number of days per week when watermen can harvest oysters — something its own staff has suggested wouldn’t do much.
The leader of a watermen’s group praised the state’s revision as “common sense,” but the Chesapeake Bay Foundation called it a “half-hearted” attempt to deal with overharvesting of the economically and ecologically important shellfish.
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