Maine's First Soft Shell Clam Farm Overcomes Green Crab Predation
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Press Herald] By Colin Woodward - August 3, 2015 -
GEORGETOWN, 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.
Then you see Chris Warner’s response: five long rows of what appear to be net-covered garden beds, some 70 patches in all, spread across the exposed ocean bottom at the mouth of a 300-foot-wide cove. Beneath the netting, protected from the hungry crabs, the tiny seed clams Warner planted here in May 2014 have been growing toward harvestable size, grazing on the plankton-rich seawater that floods the area with each tide.<
To Read Full Story Login Below.