Tragedy of the Oyster Commons

The NY Times weighs in on the possibility of a tasty food becoming an endangered species.

Efforts to constrain human behavior to protect wildlife inevitably provoke debate and complaint, never more so than when the wildlife in question is delicious. Thus the uproar involving a commercially harvested animal that many people are on slurping terms with - the plain old Eastern oyster, a humble species that ranges from New England to the Yucatán.

They hope an activist's plea will "increase the pressure for a comprehensive approach to the oyster problem - one that goes beyond harvest limits to include habitat restoration and stricter compliance with existing laws, like the Clean Water Act."  Not surprisingly, the comprehensive approach does not include the simplest way to alleviate the oyster shortage: better define and protect private property rights in oysters.  Property rights provide the incentives for conservation.  Instead, the NYT advocates an approach of attenuated property rights which will not improve the situation.