Gajah.Uk

Gajah.Uk

Gajah.Uk

Archives

  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023

Categories

  • Food
  • News
  • Real Estate
  • Sports
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
Menu

In Rhode Island, a hunt is on for the explanation for dropping numbers of the signature quahog clam

October 25, 2023 by gajah.uk

Surroundings

The clam itself is a staple of clam chowders and in 1987, the Rhode Island Legislature designated the quahog the official “Rhode Island State Shell.”

A pile of young quahogs.
A pile of younger quahogs is seen, Oct. 23, 2019, at an aquaculture web site in Georgetown, Maine. AP Picture/Patrick Whittle, File

By STEVE LeBLANC, Related Press


October 25, 2023 | 8:16 AM

Scientists, lawmakers, and those that make their residing from Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay are teaming as much as hunt for the explanation why quahogs look like on the decline.

Quahogs have a protracted historical past within the state. The shells of the massive, hard-shelled clam had been utilized by the indigenous Narragansett folks as wampum. The clam itself is a staple of clam chowders and in 1987, the Rhode Island Legislature designated the quahog the official “Rhode Island State Shell.”

On Tuesday, a particular Rhode Island legislative fee held a listening to to review the lowered catch. The fee is taking a look at a variety of doable components that could be contributing to a lack of the signature shellfish, from oxygen deficiency to altering aquatic life and local weather change.

  • An image of a Rhode Island "stuffie" installation, a 200-pound styrofoam version of the baked clam, on a plate and next to an 8-foot bottle of hot sauce.

    Explaining the ‘stuffie,’ a uniquely Rhode Island meals that’s making an attempt to draw vacationers

Quahogs — often known as little necks or cherry stones or chowder clams — are filter feeders drawing vitamins out of water columns. They don’t transfer a lot apart from the primary 2 to three weeks of their lives when they’re larvae, in line with Conor McManus, of the Rhode Island Division of Environmental Administration.

Quahogs will historically begin spawning in mid-June first in coves alongside Narragansett Bay and progress by means of the season. A second massive spawning can happen in July.

There was a peak within the harvest of quahogs within the Fifties earlier than the dredging of the clams was banned. There was a second peak within the Nineteen Eighties reflecting an enchancment in water high quality within the higher bay.

“Since then, we’ve seen a dramatic decline,” McManus mentioned.

There’s additionally been a decline within the variety of folks making an attempt to reap quahogs from historic highs of greater than 1,000 folks all the way down to about 400 folks a decade or so in the past, and now all the way down to 150 to 200 folks, he mentioned.

McManus mentioned the hunt for a solution to the quahog decline is complicated. For example, he pointed to occasions that may trigger a drop in oxygen within the water.

Usually, these hypoxia occasions are seen as a detrimental for organisms, however there’s additionally a competing idea that such episodes might assist quahogs as a result of it’d drive away potential predators.

“Over the course of a quahog’s life there’s a whole lot of uncertainty,” he mentioned.

Jim Boyd, a shellfisherman, mentioned that lower than half the variety of quahogs is being harvested from Narragansett Bay in comparison with a decade in the past and he and others who depend on quahogs want solutions.

To the business, it’s fairly clear that whereas there could also be many components for the drop, the first driver is the discount in vitamins wanted for quahogs to thrive, he mentioned.

“We actually want the division and the colleges to give attention to this query for us as a result of this business is taking a big hit over the past decade and our concern is that that is going to proceed within the coming years,” Boyd mentioned. “We’re seeing this gradual, methodical decline within the abundance of quahogs all through the bay.”

Different states alongside the Atlantic coast have additionally skilled declines in each quahogs in addition to additionally oysters, bay scallops and soft-shell clams, in line with McManus.

Quahogs feed on plankton. That additionally makes them key to the surroundings since plankton feeds on nitrates, which water therapy crops can’t filter out, making quahogs a pure supply for filtering impurities out of the water, in addition to being a sought-after meals.

The fee is charged with reporting again to lawmakers by Could 31, 2024.

Further Information Alerts

Get breaking updates as they occur.

Posted in: News Tagged: clam, Dropping, hunt, Island, numbers, quahog, reason, Rhode, signature

Recent Posts

  • This Cape Cod lodge has a brand new look and a brand new identify
  • Gov. Healey, breaking with predecessors, recommends seven pardons early in tenure
  • Sam Adams to shock some fortunate drivers with free parking round Fenway
  • Revolution reportedly exercising buyout of Jozy Altidore’s contract
  • JetBlue unveils new look coming quickly to all planes

Recent Comments

No comments to show.

Copyright © 2025 Gajah.Uk.

Magazine WordPress Theme by themehall.com