Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Writing in the VIMS publication "The Coast," Volume 8, Number One, Dr. Emmet Duffy stated that losses of marine biodiversity would ultimately lead to a worldwide collapse of wild fish stocks by the year 2050. Strong stuff, that, appearing in the prestigious magazine "Science," created quite a media fuss.

Pursuing an adversarial counterproductive regulatory approach to clam aquaculture, VIMS should consider the ecosystem benefits intensive aquaculture provides in maintaining species diversity. I refer to my predator exclusion system employed in Pepper Creek. No natural Bay resource achieves the intensity of marine biodiversity in providing both seasonal and year-round habitat for several kinds of shellfish, countless shrimp, copepods crabs, eels, pipefish, tautog, sheepshead, spadefish and an array of macro-algae, bryozoans and sponges.

Defoliating, dying off and rotting in the deeps, the highly touted eel and widgeon grasses lie dorm...