Chebeague Island, Maine - Wildlife and Nature - Clamming, Red Tide, and Poaching

Clamming, Red Tide, and Poaching

The many inlet coves around the island are home to abundant clam beds. During low tide, these fully exposed areas can be walked on and are often clammed by the locals, some of whom have made a living for decades harvesting steamers, hen clams, and razor clams from the muddy, clay-rich soil. Clamming is often shut down when the red tide — a harmful microscopic ocean organism that affects shellfish — "blooms" in the area. People who eat clams that are affected by the red tide (even steamed ones) can become violently ill; the algae can be fatal. This paralytic poisoning often causes death tp not only humans, but also birds, larval and adult fish, and marine mammals.

For many years, mussels — which grow in clusters, attached by "beards" to rocks and seaweed, pier pilings, buoys, and just about any stable structure in the ocean — were largely ignored as edible. But during the 1980s and early 1990s, when clams were getting more difficult to acquire, mussels began to be considered good eating. Some consider these mollusks a bit more "gamey" in taste compared to clams but quite similar otherwise. Mussels can be reaped in much larger quantities, very quickly. Clams have to be dug out of the sand, by hand, with an angled pick; they very often withdraw deeper into their sand tunnel when they "hear" someone digging for them. This makes harvesting clams a backbreaking task. The clam shell may be broken during this procedure, ruining it. Mussels, on the other hand, are literally lying attached to rocks on the shore during low tide, and a bucketful can be collected in minutes. Marketing demands have reduced the mussel population greatly, and now they are often "grown" by farmers on floating barges where they can be easily "picked" when ready.