Hurt said if you were to fi nd one of the
rare native clams that may still exist in our
waters, they can be 40 to 60 years old, and
in fact their age can be easily documented
just like a tree – judging from the rings and
layers in their shell. While the northern
quahogs that are farmed here can only last
potentially two summers in our warmer
water, it is the native quahog that Hurt looks
to in the battle to save Florida waters.
“We need to provide some sort of stream
of income for those farmers, as well as
doing all the work in the bay that needs
to be done,” Hurt said. “We need to hire
the clam farmers who know how to make
clam sets. They’re not easy to make. We
need them to do the husbandry work
for three years, until the beds can sustain
themselves; they are non-harvestable
for that time. Our native clam is a very
hardy clam, a thicker walled clam, and it
holds up to the hot water a lot better. The
commercial clam that the guys grow is
a northern clam, and it is easier to shuck
but it doesn’t hold up in the heat as well.
Typically, you don’t want to let them stay in
water one summer, but if they go into the
second summer in that hot water, we lose
a lot of clams. What we’re talking about is
having clam farmers revitalizing industry,
growing the northern clams on their leases,
but through the red tide closures they can
work the native clam beds.
“Our farming community is in bad shape.
Between hurricanes, red tide and COVID.
Those guys can’t make a living. We need
to restore what was over-fi shed. We’ve
had a severe loss of farmers and farms out
there right now, but we have a lot of guys
who want to get back to it, we just need
to make it sustainable for them. We’ve
been in contact with some restoration
demonstration projects, and we’re trying
to put together some state funding or local
funding to show people that this will work.
There are some real success stories on
shellfi sh restoration, with the biggest one
being in Long Island where they had a
similar project. There is a lot of political
interest in restoration, but it’s a multi-year
Ray Bauer holding a clam bed netting. These nets help
to secure the beds, and also protect against predators.
Barry explaining the process of production while
standing alongside the machine that will sort the
clams
50 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE • November/December • 2021