In the News: CSI research on soft-shell clam decline on WGBH

Soft-shell clam harvests on Massachusetts’ North Shore have plummeted nearly 80% since 1950, and a two-year collaboration between scientists and local clammers is trying to find out why. Northeastern University CSI professor David Kimbro and his team have been placing mesh-covered PVC “recruitment boxes” in the mudflats of Plum Island Sound to determine whether invasive green crabs — long blamed by clam diggers like Rowley’s Patrick Saunders — are truly responsible for the decline, since the boxes let baby clams settle while keeping predators out, allowing researchers to compare protected versus unprotected clam counts. The work builds on similar “Beal boxes” pioneered in Maine by ecologist Brian Beal. Kimbro’s Northeastern lab, including graduate student Grace Abe, hopes the data will pinpoint exactly where and when clam larvae are dying so that shellfishers and scientists can develop real solutions — a partnership Saunders hopes will one day let his own children clam the same flats his family has worked for six generations.

Learn more in the WGBH feature, here!

Author: Sierra Muñoz