Wilderness - End may be near for Point Reyes oyster farm

It looks like the last oyster may finally be shucked at the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. by the end of December, judging by what both sides in the long legal fight over the future of the farm said in federal court Monday. Then again, maybe not. Lawyers for the oyster company said that as part of settlement talks with the federal government, which has sought for two years to shut down the operation in Point Reyes National Seashore, they may agree to tear out canning and retail operations by the end of July and remove all the oysters from the water by the end of the year. However, while those talks go on, the Drakes Bay attorneys are still scraping for ways to adjust their lawsuit seeking to keep the farm open. That defiant tone was not the one Bazel used at Monday's hearing in Oakland before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The hearing was held to update Rogers on discussions between both sides in the wake of last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear an appeal of a federal court ruling against the farm in its fight to stay open. Bazel and lawyers for the U.S. Interior Department told Rogers they plan to come to a settlement in the suit by Aug. 1 regarding the oyster farm's removal. The Lunnys have been fighting the federal government's shutdown order since November 2012, when then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused to renew the oyster farm's lease. Salazar said the farm didn't fit the government's long-term plans to keep that part of Point Reyes a wilderness area. In September, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the farm's argument that the Interior Department had relied on faulty scientific evidence and overreached its powers when it refused to extend the lease...more

Oysters...cattle...people, they are all subservient to Wilderness.