WELLFLEET — Jake Puffer beckons a group of touring visitors closer, asking if they want to peek inside the ridges of his farm’s oyster hats. Disks dipped in lime, sand, and cement, then stacked and staked into the muddy flats, the hats are arranged in rows designed to catch the billions of oyster larvae swimming in Wellfleet’s waters during the early summer.

During tours organized by the Wellfleet Oyster Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind the town’s OysterFest, Puffer and others have been giving visitors to the flats a closer look at the shellfishing work most see only from the shore.

There are three more tours scheduled this month, says Nancy O’Connell, WOA’s president. The days will be growing shorter by the end of the month, and the festival ahead, on the weekend of Oct. 19-20, will require the attention of just about everyone in the industry.

The baby oysters Puffer shows the group — once they are lodged on the disks they are called spat — comprise 90 percent of the seed he starts nurturing each year. That’s a lot, Puffer says, in an industry where many buy oyster seed spawned in hatcheries, of which there is only one on Cape Cod, the Aquacultural Research Corp., or A.R.C.

Puffer put his hats in the water in mid-June, and on an early morning in late July miniature oysters have already begun forming inside the folds like precious crystals. “These are what fuels the farm,” says Puffer, who’s been raising oysters here for over two decades. He took over the grant — these are intertidal parcels that the state allows towns to license to local shellfishermen for aquacultural use — just off Mayo Beach from his father, Irving Puffer, in 2022.

In addition to being the time for catching future harvests, the warmer months offer Wellfleet aquaculturists relief from punishingly cold waters. But the summer’s longer days can also mean two low tides during daylight hours, expanding the amount of work to be done on their farms.

Alongside these seasonal changes, other gradual shifts are underway, some from climate change and others in the way of a generational handoff.

 

Passing the Torch

As has happened with his own family, Puffer says, transitions are on the horizon for other older farmers. “There’s going to be a changeover more and more as time goes on,” he says. Puffer says oyster farming is “site-specific,” and he hopes to one day pass what he’s learned about his grant to the next farmer.

According to Nancy Civetta, Wellfleet’s shellfish constable, the shift is well underway. Since the start of this year, eight people have been added to the list of grant holders, and three of them are the young adult children of current holders. There are now 142 grant holders for 161 grants and 121 farms in Wellfleet, says Civetta.

“There are very thoughtful plans by a lot of shellfishermen to do things like Jake and his dad did in terms of passing the torch,” says O’Connell. That’s happening in her own family. Her husband, Jim, has been cultivating oysters and clams for over two decades, but he has also been working hard to bring along younger farmers. Over the last few years, his nephew Jimmy Mulpeter has stuck with it, learning every aspect of the work from seed to harvest.

Another kind of transition happens when a grant holder has no ready successor. In those cases, the grant is awarded to an up-and-coming shellfisherman through a lottery. Grants that are returned to the lottery are often there for a reason, having been or become unproductive, says Alfred Pickard, who is showing off his clam farm on the tour. He’s not optimistic about those farms.

But Civetta, the constable, says she’s seen all kinds of difficult plots find success. She adds that, for those entering the industry, there are opportunities for apprenticeship on existing grants, with the possibility of taking over a license in the future.

Aquaculturists are searching for people who are learning the necessary skills and working on Wellfleet grants when it comes to succession plans. “If you’re actively engaging, you’re part of the community,” Civetta said. “People look around.”

 

Confronting Climate Change

The next generation of Wellfleet shellfish farmers will certainly need to navigate the effects of climate change on this harbor that has been known for its ability to nurture oysters for centuries. Although Puffer says the specific effects of global warming here can be hard to discern, some are nonetheless obvious.

This year, Puffer put his oyster hats out in mid-June, but that hasn’t always been the case. The change in timing is part of a delicate balance. Staged too early, the hats will “foul up,” but delay too long and the spat will pass you by, Puffer says. He used to put the discs on the flats in the first week of July, but starting a few years ago, that was too late. Warmer waters have caused oysters to spawn earlier in the summer, he says.

Almost a decade ago, a report by a working group that brought together local shellfishermen and biologists with the Social and Environmental Research Institute outlined the potential effects of  climate change on shellfishing in Wellfleet Harbor. That 2015 study suggested the possibility of a rise in mortality due to a lack of the oysters’ food source, phytoplankton, and also suggested that global warming could increase disease in oysters and quahogs and benefit predators, among other negative effects.

“We should be looking at that report and evaluating impacts that we might be able to mitigate,” says Civetta. “We have time, but we need to prioritize it.”

These developments come to an industry that is the town’s largest year-round and continues to grow. In 2022, the value of Wellfleet’s shellfish landings was more than $9.5 million, up from $6.8 million in 2018, according to the Wellfleet Shellfish Dept.’s annual reports.

Like Puffer, Pickard says the local effects of warming waters aren’t clear. But recently, Pickard, who mostly farms clams as opposed to oysters, has seen species of warmer-water predators that he has not seen in the past.

From afar, Pickard’s farm looks like an unplanted garden with seaweed lying on top. At low tide, while showing a summer tour around his clam farm, he drags a cleanout rack across brown mud. The movement reveals a dark black layer of mud underneath. Shells pop out from below. A crab scrambles away.

“Normally we’d annihilate him, but I’m going to be nice since you’re all here,” he says.

Pickard’s raking is part of his planting process, which typically occurs in the summer. Large nets are pulled over the cleared flats, which are called “runways,” usually 13 feet wide and stretching between 100 and 250 feet long. Pickard and his employees plant 100,000 clams in each plot, roughly six million total each year.

An array of other rakes round out Pickard’s collection of tools. He sweeps the seaweed off the nets regularly with a garden rake so that previously planted seed doesn’t suffocate. He harvests with a cage-like bull rake, designed to be used underwater.

Pickard, who says he’s been working in the industry for at least five decades, has seen aquaculture become a science over those years as opposed to “just doing it.” He believes a reliance on science and technology will help the younger generation, which includes his own family. Two of Pickard’s sons have entered the industry, both with degrees in marine sciences.

“The kids have the education that we didn’t,” he says.

On the Flats 

The event: Shellfishing farm tours
The time: One-hour tours on Sept. 18 at 5 p.m.; Sept. 21 at 8 a.m.; and Sept. 22 at 9 a.m.
The place: Mayo Beach, Wellfleet
The cost: $30, age 13 and up; 12 and under free; details at wellfleetoa.org/events

WELLFLEET — Jake Puffer beckons a group of touring visitors closer, asking if they want to peek inside the ridges of his farm’s oyster hats. Disks dipped in lime, sand, and cement, then stacked and staked into the muddy flats, the hats are arranged in rows designed to catch the billions of oyster larvae swimming in Wellfleet’s waters during the early summer.

During tours organized by the Wellfleet Oyster Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind the town’s OysterFest, Puffer and others have been giving visitors to the flats a closer look at the shellfishing work most see only from the shore.

There are three more tours scheduled this month, says Nancy O’Connell, WOA’s president. The days will be growing shorter by the end of the month, and the festival ahead, on the weekend of Oct. 19-20, will require the attention of just about everyone in the industry.

The baby oysters Puffer shows the group — once they are lodged on the disks they are called spat — comprise 90 percent of the seed he starts nurturing each year. That’s a lot, Puffer says, in an industry where many buy oyster seed spawned in hatcheries, of which there is only one on Cape Cod, the Aquacultural Research Corp., or A.R.C.

Puffer put his hats in the water in mid-June, and on an early morning in late July miniature oysters have already begun forming inside the folds like precious crystals. “These are what fuels the farm,” says Puffer, who’s been raising oysters here for over two decades. He took over the grant — these are intertidal parcels that the state allows towns to license to local shellfishermen for aquacultural use — just off Mayo Beach from his father, Irving Puffer, in 2022.

In addition to being the time for catching future harvests, the warmer months offer Wellfleet aquaculturists relief from punishingly cold waters. But the summer’s longer days can also mean two low tides during daylight hours, expanding the amount of work to be done on their farms.

Alongside these seasonal changes, other gradual shifts are underway, some from climate change and others in the way of a generational handoff.

 

Passing the Torch

As has happened with his own family, Puffer says, transitions are on the horizon for other older farmers. “There’s going to be a changeover more and more as time goes on,” he says. Puffer says oyster farming is “site-specific,” and he hopes to one day pass what he’s learned about his grant to the next farmer.

According to Nancy Civetta, Wellfleet’s shellfish constable, the shift is well underway. Since the start of this year, eight people have been added to the list of grant holders, and three of them are the young adult children of current holders. There are now 142 grant holders for 161 grants and 121 farms in Wellfleet, says Civetta.

“There are very thoughtful plans by a lot of shellfishermen to do things like Jake and his dad did in terms of passing the torch,” says O’Connell. That’s happening in her own family. Her husband, Jim, has been cultivating oysters and clams for over two decades, but he has also been working hard to bring along younger farmers. Over the last few years, his nephew Jimmy Mulpeter has stuck with it, learning every aspect of the work from seed to harvest.

Another kind of transition happens when a grant holder has no ready successor. In those cases, the grant is awarded to an up-and-coming shellfisherman through a lottery. Grants that are returned to the lottery are often there for a reason, having been or become unproductive, says Alfred Pickard, who is showing off his clam farm on the tour. He’s not optimistic about those farms.

But Civetta, the constable, says she’s seen all kinds of difficult plots find success. She adds that, for those entering the industry, there are opportunities for apprenticeship on existing grants, with the possibility of taking over a license in the future.

Aquaculturists are searching for people who are learning the necessary skills and working on Wellfleet grants when it comes to succession plans. “If you’re actively engaging, you’re part of the community,” Civetta said. “People look around.”

 

Confronting Climate Change

The next generation of Wellfleet shellfish farmers will certainly need to navigate the effects of climate change on this harbor that has been known for its ability to nurture oysters for centuries. Although Puffer says the specific effects of global warming here can be hard to discern, some are nonetheless obvious.

This year, Puffer put his oyster hats out in mid-June, but that hasn’t always been the case. The change in timing is part of a delicate balance. Staged too early, the hats will “foul up,” but delay too long and the spat will pass you by, Puffer says. He used to put the discs on the flats in the first week of July, but starting a few years ago, that was too late. Warmer waters have caused oysters to spawn earlier in the summer, he says.

Almost a decade ago, a report by a working group that brought together local shellfishermen and biologists with the Social and Environmental Research Institute outlined the potential effects of  climate change on shellfishing in Wellfleet Harbor. That 2015 study suggested the possibility of a rise in mortality due to a lack of the oysters’ food source, phytoplankton, and also suggested that global warming could increase disease in oysters and quahogs and benefit predators, among other negative effects.

“We should be looking at that report and evaluating impacts that we might be able to mitigate,” says Civetta. “We have time, but we need to prioritize it.”

These developments come to an industry that is the town’s largest year-round and continues to grow. In 2022, the value of Wellfleet’s shellfish landings was more than $9.5 million, up from $6.8 million in 2018, according to the Wellfleet Shellfish Dept.’s annual reports.

Like Puffer, Pickard says the local effects of warming waters aren’t clear. But recently, Pickard, who mostly farms clams as opposed to oysters, has seen species of warmer-water predators that he has not seen in the past.

From afar, Pickard’s farm looks like an unplanted garden with seaweed lying on top. At low tide, while showing a summer tour around his clam farm, he drags a cleanout rack across brown mud. The movement reveals a dark black layer of mud underneath. Shells pop out from below. A crab scrambles away.

“Normally we’d annihilate him, but I’m going to be nice since you’re all here,” he says.

Pickard’s raking is part of his planting process, which typically occurs in the summer. Large nets are pulled over the cleared flats, which are called “runways,” usually 13 feet wide and stretching between 100 and 250 feet long. Pickard and his employees plant 100,000 clams in each plot, roughly six million total each year.

An array of other rakes round out Pickard’s collection of tools. He sweeps the seaweed off the nets regularly with a garden rake so that previously planted seed doesn’t suffocate. He harvests with a cage-like bull rake, designed to be used underwater.

Pickard, who says he’s been working in the industry for at least five decades, has seen aquaculture become a science over those years as opposed to “just doing it.” He believes a reliance on science and technology will help the younger generation, which includes his own family. Two of Pickard’s sons have entered the industry, both with degrees in marine sciences.

“The kids have the education that we didn’t,” he says.

On the Flats 

The event: Shellfishing farm tours
The time: One-hour tours on Sept. 18 at 5 p.m.; Sept. 21 at 8 a.m.; and Sept. 22 at 9 a.m.
The place: Mayo Beach, Wellfleet
The cost: $30, age 13 and up; 12 and under free; details at wellfleetoa.org/events