Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Where have all the soft-shell clams gone? Scientists and shellfishers seek answers.

September 3, 2026 — Just past sunrise on a warm August morning, Northeastern University marine science professor David Kimbro stood ankle-deep in the waters of Plum Island Sound.

He carried what resembled a stack of white pizza boxes — only they were made of PVC and had black mesh on top. Once the tide dropped, Kimbro and his team rushed to swap the boxes for others that had been sitting in the mud for a month.

In total, the scientists hauled in 45 mud-filled boxes that morning and motored them back to the research station nearby on Massachusetts’ North Shore. Inside, they hoped to find a bevy of soft-shell clams.

Read the full article at GBH

Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them

August 26, 2026 — As a morning fog lifted over Maine’s York River, Mike Masi and his two interns stood on a dock sorting through a mound of one of the region’s most despised crabs and hoped to find a few that would end up on a gastronome’s plate somewhere in New England.

The trick is to identify invasive European green crabs that are about to shed their hard shell, or molt, revealing a softer exterior that has the feel of a leather couch, and are popular at restaurants. Not only do these green crabs fetch more money — Masi can get $3 a crab at market compared to as little as 8 cents for a hard shell — but catching them provides a service of sorts to the ocean’s ecosystem.

“Just about everyone hates them and we’re trying to turn them into a premium seafood product,” said Masi, whose company, shell+claw, is the only one that commercially cultivates these crabs.

Masi, a 45-year-old former marine science teacher, is part of a growing movement across New England aiming to lessen the crabs’ destructive impact by developing new markets. Others are putting green crabs in pet treats, fish sauce and even a line of green crab whiskey in New Hampshire.

The green crabs, Carcinus maenas, made their way from Europe to the East Coast in the ballast waters of ships hundreds of years ago. Numbering in the tens of millions, they outcompete Atlantic rock crab and juvenile lobster, destroy eelgrass beds and undermine salt marsh banks. They also are costing the region’s shellfish industry tens of millions of dollars each year, as they eat mussels, oysters and soft-shell clams.

Read the full article at ABC News

$1.6M to aquaculture and fisheries research

April 13, 2026 — Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Sea Grant has awarded $1.6 million to four new research projects targeting pressing challenges facing Massachusetts’ aquaculture and fisheries industries, including soft-shell clams, oysters, and black sea bass.

“Each of these projects addresses a question we’re hearing directly from those working on the water: how to keep shellfish beds open, how to manage emerging fisheries, how to improve aquaculture practices, and how to restore oyster reefs more effectively,” said WHOI Sea Grant Director Matt Charette. “This is science driven by real needs, with outcomes that will directly benefit coastal communities.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

WHOI Sea Grant supports $1.6 million in critical aquaculture and fisheries research

April 8, 2026 — Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant has awarded $1.6 million to four new research projects that will investigate pressing concerns related to Massachusetts’ vital aquaculture and fisheries industries, including oysters, soft-shell clams, and black sea bass. The awards are the result of WHOI Sea Grant’s 2026 to 2027 biennial research competition.

“Each of these projects addresses a question we’re hearing directly from those working on the water: how to keep shellfish beds open, how to manage emerging fisheries, how to improve aquaculture practices, and how to restore oyster reefs more effectively,” said WHOI Sea Grant Director Matt Charette. “This is science driven by real needs, with outcomes that will directly benefit coastal communities.”

Over the next two years, these projects will generate new tools and data to support species economically and environmentally important to coastal Massachusetts. The Commonwealth-based researchers will also share this work with the people who will directly benefit from the findings. The projects reflect a coordinated effort to address several pressing challenges facing Massachusetts’ coastal waters and communities.

Read the full article at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 

MAINE: After Last Year’s Poor Harvest, Mainers Work To Help Clam Fisheries Bounce Back

August 9th, 2019 — Last year Maine’s harvest of soft-shell clams was one of the worst in many decades, down to around 7 million pounds. That’s due in part to closures of polluted flats, and predation by the invasive green crab.

But harvesters and other observers say the fishery can bounce back — and new efforts to better protect the resource are emerging in more than a dozen coastal towns.

The Medomak River is Maine’s most prolific softshell clam fishery, and Glen Melvin has been picking them from the mudflats here, off and on, for more than four decades. Steering a beat-up aluminum outboard downstream from Waldoboro, Melvin sports a multi-colored bandana and mirrored sunglasses.

The boat flies past cove after cove, which in recent years have been frequently shut down to clamming because of pollution by fecal coliform.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

How Maine can save its historic clamming industry

May 15, 2018 — Maine’s clamming industry, typically the second or third most economically important marine resource, saw landings fall to an 87-year low in 2017. Commercial harvests dropped 39 percent and 66 percent over the past five and 35 years, respectively. Today, about 1,500 state-licensed clammers ply their trade in the soft-bottom intertidal zone whereas in 1973 that number was nearly 5,925. This decline should worry coastal communities from Kittery to Lubec.

Though we possess different perspectives and experiences, we are united in our concern for the future of Maine’s clamming industry. We joined forces on the flats in northern Casco Bay to better understand the nature of the clam decline. Since 2013, we have worked together, along with other clammers, research technicians and students, to conduct 27 experiments at 78 intertidal sites, and analyzed the contents of more than 34 tons of intertidal sediments. Some of our findings were recently published in the Journal of Shellfish Research.

While many threats to soft-shell clam populations exist, such as disease, pollution, red tide, coastal acidification, our studies showed that predators — both invasive and native — are the major cause of recent declines in this fishery, and furthermore, that no significant relationship exists between harvesting and the amount of juvenile clams under 1-year-old. Instead, we have learned that the health of the clam population is determined very early in a clam’s life history.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News