On Tuesday the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife approved the season’s first set of coastal razor clam digs. The confirmation of this week’s digging dates came one week after the much anticipated opening was put in jeopardy by rapidly rising domoic acid levels along sections of Washington’s coastline.
The opening round of digs will take place on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 6-7, at Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis and Mocrocks after the most recent batch of marine toxin tests revealed those clams to be safe for human consumption. All beaches are currently open for evening tides and no digging will be allowed before noon.
WDFW coastal shellfish manager Dan Ayres says he expects a hearty turnout for the opening digs. He said he bases that prediction on historical digger effort along with the sheer number of inquiries he was forced to field after approval for the digs was temporarily delayed on Sept. 27. He added that a decent forecast of mild temperatures and light rain should help to buffer the typically stout turnout.
“A lot of times that first dig is a pretty good turnout anyway. There’s just a lot of clam hungry people out there,” said Ayres.
Ayres noted that folks who like to test their luck at Long Beach are particularly pent up with desire for the succulent bivalve due to the fact that Long Beach was closed for the majority of the fall/winter of 2016, and winter/spring of 2017, due to lingering domoic acid toxicity. Although the beach was given nearly a year long reprieve from the hungry pounding of shovels ocean conditions conspired to depress the undisturbed clam population.
While domoic acid kept the clams off limits to diggers, a bout of low salinity coastal water effectively starved the clams of their typical food sources. Ayres called it a “perfect storm” of unfavorable conditions that wiped out big gains in population that had been made in recent years.
A population stock assessment at Long Beach in the summer of 2016 revealed the largest number of adult razor clams (larger than three inches) in the last 25 years. One year later that same style assessment showed a reduction of the adult clam population by more than 60 percent, which dropped the Long Beach clam density to within squirting distance of its lowest levels in a quarter century.
“A lot of the ones that lived are the bigger ones which is good in the short term but they are not very dense,” said Ayres. “It’s not going to be the big bonanza that you would intuitively think would happen because of the closure.”
Ayres believes that those low salinity levels can be attributed to the the sustained high flow of the Columbia River last winter and spring. He noted that it’s common for the outflow current of the Columbia River to turn north during the cold months, which typically results in fewer and smaller clams on the south end of the Long Beach Peninsula. Last year, though, was different due to the large volume of fresh water coming out of the state’s largest watershed and the effects were farther reaching.
“From January to June this last winter we saw really low levels of salinity, mostly at Long Beach...I think it’s pretty attributable to the high volume of water coming out of the Columbia River because of the rain and snowfall,” said Ayres. “Not only do razor clams not like fresh water but the plankton source that they depend on for food really don’t like fresh water.”
Despite the dramatic loss in razor clam population at Long Beach, Ayres says there is no need to panic, noting that the clams will rebound in time. “They will recover,” said Ayres. “It is not a disaster.”
The upcoming dig is approved on the following beaches, dates and evening low tides:
• Oct. 6, Friday, 7:49 p.m.; -0.4 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis, Mocrocks
• Oct. 7, Saturday, 8:33 p.m.; -0.7 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis, Mocrocks
Ayres recommend that diggers hit the beach one or two hours prior to low tide for the best diggin results. The next proposed batch of digging dates are tentatively scheduled for Nov. 2-5.
Questions at Kalaloch
Last winter the WDFW and the Olympic National Park opened up Kalaloch Beach to razor clam digging for the first time since 2012. Diminishing clam populations led to the more than four year long closure but a population survey in the summer of 2016 showed a recovery so remarkable that Ayres was forced to rub his eyes and triple check his findings. He even went so far as to call colleagues in his field so that they could assure him he had not gone crazy.
“It was so dense you could not have squeezed another clam in the ground,” said Ayres. “It was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it in my career.”
Most of those clams were located at the north end of the beach and the WDFW anticipated significant, if natural, die-offs as the clams matured due to competition for food and resources. A population review in the summer of 2016 confirmed that anticipated decline in the initial numbers but the remaining clams still represented one of the largest adult clam population ever recorded at Kalaloch. Those findings paved the way for a set of digging dates in January of 2017 that wound up producing more fanfare than shellfish.
“In January when we opened, whatever had taken the clams we’d counted in the summer had taken the rest,” said Ayres. “That was a huge disappointment. That huge surge of juvenile clams didn’t pan out to anything. They were basically all gone.”
With the once abundant clams once again missing in action, the WDFW called off the rest of the proposed digs at Kalaloch. This summer though things took another unforeseen turn on the Olympic Peninsula when the annual population survey showed an even larger crop of recruits in the shifting sands at Kalaloch. This time the clams were more evenly distributed around the desolate stretch of beach, which Ayres says should help to increase their chances of survival.
“A good year coastwide would be 40 million (clams), and we had 80 million just in that little section,” said Ayres, with tempered enthusiasm. “There’s just a lot of head scratching about what’s going on here.”
In July, things took another turn for the weird.
“We started getting calls at the end of July from folks saying there’s something weird going on. There are gray whales working at high tide right on the beach in water you'd never expect to see a gray whale,” explained Ayres.
He readily admits that there is little to work off of except speculation at this point, but, he asked, “What could they possibly be eating except these clams?”
A juvenile gray whale even made the news this summer when it became beached near Kalaloch. A multiple day rescue effort ultimately freed the animal but the happening has fueled a suspicion that the hungry whales could be to blame for the cresting and receding clam populations along the Olympic Peninsula coastline. Ayres says he has even investigated the scene himself and came away with a grainy cellphone photo of whales squirming on their sides in the shallow surf with one fin stretched out in the air in the apparent act of feeding. One report told of about four dozen whales apparently feeding along one coastal section at one time. Just what exactly the whales are eating remains a mystery though since scientists have so far been unable to obtain a sample of whale feces that would put the matter to rest.
“If it is gray whales that’s not a bad thing, they certainly have to eat too,” said Ayres.
Ayres noted that there are currently no proposed clam digs at Kalaloch Beach for 2017, and, although he was reluctant to pull the possibility for a dig off the table for the following year he says the extended forecast is more promising.
“I think it would be a little bit premature and shortsighted to open it up too soon,” said Ayres, noting that many of the clams are still quite small.
All clam diggers 15 years of age or older are required to purchase a fishing license before harvesting razor clams on any beach. State law allows individuals to keep the first 15 clams they dig. No high grading is allowed and each digger must keep their clams in their own personal container.
In a press release, Ayres noted that a research team from the University of Maryland will be out on Washington beaches during the 2017-18 razor clam season in order to conduct a survey. That team is seeking volunteers to participate in their study about razor clam consumption and harvesting practices. Additional information can be obtained by contacting Lynn Grattan at 877-668-4559 or LGrattan@som.umaryland.edu.
A full schedule of proposed razor clam digging dates in Washington can be found online at wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfish/razorclams/current.html.
