Clams Archives - Page 10 of 10

The Economist: Particle biology

October 10, 2015 — Filter-feeding bivalve molluscs, such as mussels, oysters, scallops and clams, are a useful and tasty source of protein. They can, though, also be harbingers of illness. A filter-feeder lives, as the name suggests, by trapping and consuming particles (mostly bacteria and single-celled algae) suspended in water it pumps through its body. If those particles are themselves toxic, they can seriously discomfort, and occasionally kill, a human who eats a mollusc that has been feeding on them.

The most common culprits are algae called dinoflagellates and diatoms, several species of which make potent toxins. These algae often multiply into spectacular blooms along coastlines. Even in the absence of such a bloom, though, they can be abundant enough to cause problems. For this reason, in most places in the rich world at least, bivalves intended for sale have to be tested before they go to market. That involves taking samples to a laboratory, which is cumbersome and time-consuming. What is needed is a simple test that can be carried out on-board a ship. And Waqass Jawaid, of Queen’s University in Belfast, thinks he has one.

One way of screening shellfish is pretty crude. This is to inject a mouse with a sample and see if it gets ill— a procedure no longer used in Europe, but still permitted in parts of America. The alternative, a mix of chromatography and mass spectrometry, is more sensitive, but requires expensive equipment and trained staff. Dr Jawaid’s method, which he and his colleagues report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, employs antibodies to create a system similar to a pregnancy test.

Read the full story at The Economist

Wiscasset, Maine debates using drones to catch clam poachers

September 17, 2015 — Wiscasset selectmen heard a second proposal involving drones at their Tuesday, Sept. 15 meeting, this time from a representative of the shellfish committee. The committee is investigating the use of drones to enforce the shellfish ordinance and prevent poachers from depleting a hard-fought-for resource in Wiscasset, Richard Forrest said to selectmen.

The issue was brought to the attention of selectmen because the committee did not want to investigate the matter further unless the town supported the initiative, Forrest said. Selectmen advised the shellfish committee to bring the proposal in front of the selectmen and the budget committee during the next budget season, in part because the estimated $2,000 expense for drone use was not incorporated into the committee’s 2015-2016 budget.

The approximate price of a bushel of clams three weeks ago was $200, Forrest said, a price which has attracted poachers to Wiscasset’s mudflats. “This really bothers me,” Forrest said. “We put in so much to get this resource to the point where harvesters can make a living.”

While not a dire situation, there have been scattered instances of poachers digging clams in Cushman’s Cove and Polly Clark Cove, Forrest said. The poachers are sophisticated, oftentimes travel by water, and are difficult for Shellfish Warden Jon Hentz, who serves three municipalities, to catch.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

The Aging Oyster And Clam Hatchery That’s Behind A Multimillion-Dollar Industry

September 7, 2015 — As traditional fish stocks in New England continue to decline and the industry endures greater restrictions, fishermen have been creating a new line of work: They are becoming farmers — shellfish farmers.

The cultivation of oysters and clams has become big business in Massachusetts, especially on Cape Cod, but the one source for the state’s $25 million aquaculture industry almost shut its doors.

From Oyster Seeds The Size Of ‘Pepper,’ A Family Business Grew

Myron Taylor is out on Wellfleet Harbor. He’s 74 and has been been raising clams and oysters here since he was a kid.

“And back in the old time when we had to pick up all the oysters seeds on the beach, in order to get them to grow, and it took about four years to get an oyster to grow,” he says.

Those wild oyster seeds Taylor picked up off the beach years ago were juvenile oysters and clams that he would plant in nearby waters. But that traditional method for growing shellfish was very slow and often did not yield much product. So like most fishermen on the Cape, Taylor caught cod, flounder and other groundfish to earn a living.

In the late 1980s, when those stocks became scarce, Taylor turned to lobstering. It was around that time he heard about some scientists in Dennis who were harvesting tiny clam seeds and selling them to fishermen to grow.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at WBUR

Mainer sees success in commercial clam farm, but not everyone loves the project

August 2, 2015 — GEORGETOWN, ME — Marching across the clam flats near the head of Heal Eddy, you notice two things.

First, both the seafloor and the sea grass meadows on the shoreline are cratered with holes – the work of green crabs, the voracious crustaceans blamed for the widespread destruction of the state’s soft-shell clams.

Behold Maine’s first commercial-scale soft-shell clam farm, an experimental project that aims to test whether a single owner-operated farm can earn a worthwhile return for clam diggers who heretofore relied exclusively on the whims of nature to earn a living from the seafloor. If it works, it could revolutionize Maine’s second most valuable fishery, enhance the livelihoods of diggers and stop the assault of the green crabs in their tracks.

But the project has been contentious here in Georgetown, a coastal community 6 miles south of Bath, where some clam diggers fear that self-employed clam diggers like Warner and themselves will eventually be pushed out by corporate growers if the succulent mollusks are farmed rather than gathered in the wild.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald