Menemsha Pond and Katama Bay reopened to oyster harvesting on Friday morning after being closed for a week to investigate several cases of gastrointestinal illness. 

The state Division of Marine Fisheries closed Menemsha Pond and Katama Bay to oyster harvesting last week as a precaution after people have become infected with a gastrointestinal illness.

After more than a decade of tending oysters, Dan Martino is ready to pass his knowledge on to the next crop of farmers. 

Dark green and gray, slick with algae, pocked with parasitic scars and polychaete worm tunnels, wild oysters are survivors, fighting everything the pond's brackish waters throw at them.

A bay scallop farming study is one of several projects in Dukes County funded by new state grants, aimed at bolstering the local shellfish industry in a time of climate change.

Commercial bay scalloping and oyster seasons will be extended in Edgartown following a vote by the town select board Monday. Both will run until May 1.