Bad Clams

The hits just keep coming. The Stinson Canning closure is still on the front page of the paper and I heard on the radio, as I was driving to work today, that Maine should expect severe red tide blooms this summer. Biologists predict the bloom by counting algae cysts [which act like seeds for the next crop of algae] on the ocean bottom in the fall and the number is up by 60%, prompting a warning that flats might be closed again next summer. The DMR monitors shellfish for red tide toxin that causes PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) and closes areas to harvesting clams and mussels when the toxins appear. This means no work for diggers and expensive clams. I once asked a DMR biologist, who was injecting lab mice with ground up clams to see if they containted the PSP toxins, if there was home test I could do for red tide. He asked me if I had a cat. Yes, I had a cat. "Feed him a couple of clams. If he's OK in half an hour or so, go ahead and eat some clams. It works, but only once," he said. I never tried it.

I used to work in a boatyard with a couple of guys who dug clams to augment the $5.00/hr we were making scraping and painting boat bottoms. They'd dig before or after work, or maybe cut work altogether if the digging was good. They looked forward to 'double tide' days with two low tides in daylight hours because they could make a lot of money. I admired how hard they worked to scratch out a living between the yard and the clam flats. Back then the 25 million pound Maine clam harvest earned about 8.5 million dollars and clams in the shell brought about 33 cents a pound, Diggers were paid by the bushel. Last year about 9 million pounds were worth 12 million dollars and brought $1.31 a pound. The size of the harvest has seen a gradual, but troubling decline over the 40 years.

A lot depends on which way the wind blows on the Maine coast. This summer offshore winds at the right time could push the algae off shore and spare some, or all of the coast a PSP scare, but onshore winds could increase the problem. How bad will it, be? Depends on which way the wind blows.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZJeRs_-FkA&feature=related