Ecomare

The shellfish fisheries work in tidal regions or coastal waters. The Dutch shellfish fishermen concentrate primarily on mussels (mussel seed fisheries and mussel farming). In addition, oysters are cultivated.  Trough shells (spisula) used to be fished along the coast, but the species has declined so that the catches are usually made up of razor shells. In order to protect nature, there are many areas where the fishermen are not allowed to fish. During shellfish-poor years, there is often a total fishing ban. Since 2005, the mechanical fishing of cockles in the Wadden Sea has been banned. Only manual collection of cockles is still permitted. These manual cockle fishermen have also begun to gather Japanese oysters from the mudflats as well. The mussel seed farming on the natural mussel banks is slowly but surely changing to harvesting mussel seed from net installations.