Stray boat anchor blamed for damage to Herm oyster beds

Yesterday morning, Herm Oysters Ltd staff discovered five damaged oyster tables in their eight-acre farm on Fisherman’s Beach.

Herm is the main growing area for the company’s oyster production, given its size, accessibility and growth rate.

As well as the damaged tables, several bags of oysters were ripped or punctured and will need replacing.

‘We assume that a boat perhaps got its anchor caught on one of the tables,’ said Herm Oysters Ltd co-owner Charlotte Dickson.

‘The oyster beds don’t even shift that much in big storms, so whoever did it must have known it happened.’

Five tables were turned over and lifted up, causing the legs to pierce through some of the bags of oysters, with another group of tables being shifted out of place.

‘One of the biggest problems in all this is that it’s going to take a day to get straight, which is a day less of farming,’ said Ms Dickson.

‘Time is going to be one of the biggest costs – we can only graze the oysters during a spring tide.

‘We’ve been waiting months for a good tide like this and now we have to spend our time on repairs instead of grazing.’

Depending on the size of the oysters, which Ms Dickson assumed were juvenile ones due to their place in the farm, up to three-quarters of a ton of oysters could have been lost out on due to the damage.

‘Whoever has done this must have noticed and, on that basis, if they had called us we could have prepared for it.

‘Accidents happen, we know that, but I wish they would have done the decent thing and let us know – even if it just gave us the chance to allocate time to sort it out, not just turn up [yesterday] morning and find the farm in this state.’

It is thought the incident happened sometime between Sunday and Wednesday.

Ms Dickson has asked for anyone with information about what happened to get in contact with her on 07839 266661.

Boatowners are asked to be careful sailing around Herm because of the oyster farm, which is marked on charts and appears on GPS.