Oh shucks! Mashpee Wampanoag commercial fisherman loses oyster suit and $480

A commercial fisherman and member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe who had several wild oysters he picked from a pond seized by the state lost his appeal Cheenulka Pocknett went to Green Pond in Falmouth on Wednesday Dec and took a large number of wild oysters according to the Massachusetts Appeals Court Unfortunately for him the pond was closed to commercial fishing on Wednesdays as it also is for Sundays Mondays and Fridays Pocknett kept a number of the oysters for himself as well as friends and family as is allowed due to tribal exemption laws But he boxed another of the oysters marked the containers with his Division of Marine Fisheries license number and sold them to a Harwich-based shellfish wholesaler called Big Rock Oysters The Falmouth harbormaster somehow figured out what was going on and informed the unlawful shellfishing in Green Pond to a state Environmental Police officer who in turn went to Big Rock Oysters and inspected the oyster containers He reported that the company should not have accepted the oysters but since they were already there he advised them to sell them but that the state would be taking the proceeds which turned out to be The officer then issued Pocknett a warning for illegal shellfishing That s the beginning of a strange affair known as Commonwealth vs One Check in the Amount of for Pieces of Wild Oysters Crassostrea Virginica eventually ended up at an Appeals Court hearing presided over by Justice Lisa F Edmonds Crassostrea Virginica is the scientific name for the Eastern or Atlantic oyster common on the East Coast Pocknett had several arguments against the seizure and the forfeiture For one he reported that because the officer only issued a warning and didn t suspend or cancel his commercial fishing license that the seizure wasn t legal But Judge Edmonds didn t make much of that argument Nothing in that chain of events could have led Pocknett reasonably to believe that the seizure would be undone Then there s the more stimulating argument that he was acting as a Native American exercising his right to fish for sustenance and not as a commercial fisherman Again Edmonds wasn t convinced the officer only seized the oysters that Pocknett had cartoned affixed with his commercial license number and sold to a wholesaler not the oysters Pocknett kept for personal consumption or to share with his friends and family As a licensed wholesaler Big Rock Oysters was required to obtain the fisherman s name and DMF number from any person who sold it fish Edmonds wrote In short it was only by acting as a commercial fisherman that Pocknett was able to sell the oysters in question to Big Rock Oysters