(a) The department and the Department of Agriculture shall conduct a shellfish program sufficient to be certified by the United States Food and Drug Administration for interstate shipment of shellfish produced in this state.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any person handling shellfish for purposes of sale or shipment to fail to keep such shellfish in clean barrels, bags, crates, baskets, or other containers as prescribed by the Department of Agriculture. It shall be unlawful to fail to attach to each such container a tag obtained from the Department of Agriculture or to mark containers of shucked shellfish with mandatory information as described by the Department of Agriculture. It shall be unlawful to possess shellfish which are not properly tagged or labeled according to this Code section. Such tags or labels shall indicate the information as required by the Department of Agriculture.

(c) It shall be unlawful to affix tags issued to a certified dealer onto containers of another or to fail to surrender unused tags to the Department of Agriculture upon termination of certification or master collecting permit.

(d) It shall be unlawful to ship or possess commercial quantities of shellfish unless certified by the Department of Agriculture. It shall be unlawful to possess shellfish from out-of-state sources unless those shellfish were purchased from certified dealers. It shall be unlawful to ship shellfish through Georgia unless certified. Certified dealers are those permitted to handle shellfish according to the guidelines of the National Shellfish Sanitation Program. The department may issue permission to uncertified firms to take and possess shellfish for mariculture purposes. Such permission may be issued upon such conditions as the department determines are in accordance with current, sound principles of wildlife research and management.