Click the words above “Save our Tomales Bay Part 21 Leasewalk M430-15…” to see this entire post.
On 22 March I paid a visit to the large lease operated by Hog Island Oysters (HIO) near Tom’s Point (lease M-430-15), and another Hog Island lease at the mouth of Walker Creek (lease M-430-10).
I’ve been mostly sharing findings on the leases run by Tomales Bay Oyster Company (TBOC) due to the ease of access to the southern lease, as well as because their leases are some of the messiest places on the bay.
Getting to the far north lease of HIO takes more time and energy, so I don’t get there too often.
Often I am asked by people “What about Hog Island? Do they make as big a mess as TBOC?)
My usual response is “All the growers make a mess, HIO makes the least mess from what I can tell.”
Until now, I thought TBOC and crew were the only culprits when it came to cutting and dropping zip-ties into the bay during harvest. I found 54 zip-ties on this day along a very short section of shore, with only moderate effort.
As you can see from the images below, HIO has room to improve their methods.
As always, click on an image to see a larger version.
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Green polygon depicts Hog Island Oysters lease M-430-15, near Tom’s Point. Red arrow points to location where abandoned grow-out bags were left on 22 March. Each yellow pin shows location of abandoned grow-out bag. T21 is where I reattached 3 bags of live oysters to anchor line.