Reducing Theft of Oysters Through the Use of RFID Technology

Poaching (theft) of oyster from the oyster beds is a huge problem. Purpose of this study is to assess a means of reducing poaching. The means to be studied is the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to mark oysters that would be placed on the beds so that when oysters from those beds are brought to the seafood processor, their origin can be identified. A detailed discussion of RFID appears in a later section of this study. RFID tags are to be put in dummy oysters, which should be hard to detect from real oysters. The shells must have a suitable media to hold the shell together and give it about the same density as a live oyster. Further, as detailed later, the media should be an electrically insulating material so that it does not absorb electromagnetic radiation