Hard Clam Task Force

What is the Hard Clam Task Force?

The HCTF is a group of researchers, resource managers, extension personnel, and industry representatives who have an interest in the wild stocks and aquaculture or the Hard Clam or the Manila Clam, and want to see improvements made in both areas. These people represent every East Coast state, two Canadian Maritime provinces, and two West Coast states.

The task force had a basis in the National Shellfisheries Association (NSA) meetings in Charleston, South Carolina in 1994, Baltimore, Maryland in 1996, and the First International Conference on Shellfish Restoration in Hilton Head, South Carolina in 1996. It has met twice more at the Ft. Walton Beach, Florida NSA in 1997, ICSR 98, and informally at the World Aquaculture Society Meeting 98, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Funding for people to attend some of these meetings and baseline infrastructure work comes from the United States Environmental Protection Agency Ocean and Coastal Protection Division, Marine Pollution Control Branch.

Mission of the Hard Clam Task Force

To bring together industry, government, and academia to assess the current status the Northern Quahog or Hard Clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) and Manila Clam (Tapes japonicus) production in the United States and Canada, the factors which may be negatively or positively impacting their abundance, and available alternatives to restore and increase clam populations.

Goals of Hard Clam Task Force

To implement the most effective and efficient means to restore or increase the abundance of the Northern Quahog or Hard Clam (and Manila Clam) on public beds.

Objectives

• To determine if the hard clam populations have in fact declined, or are only perceived as having declined.
• Use a restoration project to assess the parameters within the ecosystem that may affect relative abundance, and be of significant importance to the overall health of the clam populations.
• From alternatives likely to restore or increase abundance, determine which are most likely to be effective (rational, costs, site specific conditions, logistics, impact) and determine gaps which may need to be resolved prior to implementation of the restoration strategy. In other words, measure twice and cut once!

Potential Studies on Hard Clams

• Economic Importance--landings, employment, recreation, aquaculture
• Develop a model to unify studies information into a basis for testing hypothesis
• Evaluate Populations--define population, standing stock data sets, reproductive capacity, disease levels, recruitment, stock exploitation
• Rehabilitation Techniques--seeding, natural production enhancement, adult populations manipulations

Base Data Needed

• Water Environment--temperature, salinity, suspended sediment, hydrography, DO, pH, pollutants, chlorophyll, TPN
• Sediment Environment--grain size, organic content, redox level, sediment composition
• Biological Environment--predators, disease organisms, dinoflagellate blooms, benthic macroalgae, primary production

Aquaculture Related Clam Studies

• Adult Conditioning
• Hatchery--spawning, larval rearing, setting
• Nursery--on-shore, field bags, tidal or powered upwellers, fine mesh bottom screens, overwintering, interstate shipment
• Growout--density, predators, mesh size vs. growth, bags or containers, shelf life
• Site Preparation and Crop Rotation
• Harvesting Technology and Marketing

Projects Related to Task Force

• Aquaculture training program in Monmouth County, N.J.--stock restoration project for Baymens' Protective Association.
• Stock assessment for Raritan Bay, N.J.
• Hard clam population dynamics research for Long Island, N.Y. South Shore
• Hard clam management plan for Virginia
• North Carolina culch enhanced clam planting and management plan
• Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Science Group, New Brunswick, Canada--beginning clam health program
• DFO Science NB--broodstock sanctuaries and maximum harvest size
• Massachusetts town quahog stocking projects
• Florida Department of Environmental Protection stock enhancement Research--spawner transplants, seed planting, release of fertilized eggs
• Connecticut Division Of Aquaculture--revise policy for interstate transfers and introductions of shellfish
• Connecticut Division of Aquaculture--foster an aquatic animal health policy for hard clams
• University of Rhode Island--investigation of eutrophication by quahogs
• Coast wide--Hydro-acoustic surveys for stock assessment

Future Task Force Focus Areas

1. With combined efforts, we would be better positioned to explain the large-scale ecological changes that need to be investigated, evaluate the fishery decline, and determine most effective management and remediation approaches.
2. HCTF could serve to standardize sampling protocols and data collection so that efforts from place to place could be comparable.
3. HCTF can identify research priorities to fill voids in collective understanding of hard clam biology.
4. HCTF can use the discussion group, ''clams@aesop.rutgers.edu'' to leverage the members' expertise for experimental design, information, rehabilitation ideas, education, and outreach in hard clam research.

What are the Weakest Parts?

• Realization on state and federal level that oysters are not the only shellfish that need attention.
• Need for more industry participation, both from the wild harvesters and aquaculturists.
• Need for national meeting to define industry research priorities.
• Lack of a unifying document of purpose, such as Gulf of Mexico Shellfish Challenge Plan.
• Finances.

Next Steps

• Develop a stable source of funding to continue coordination, inclusion of others, development of a national meeting.
• Promote state and federal agency acknowledgment that funding local projects can enhance regional or national knowledge base.
• Continue communication of members to inform them of new and pending projects.