Mainebiz

W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 15 M AY 2 , 2 0 1 6 I N S I D E T H E N OT E B O O K W hen I interviewed Tim Sheehan last fall in Pembroke for our Oct. 19 story "Company seeks to build up clamming in Maine's poor- est county," I was impressed by the many creative ways he and his wife, Amy, have been bringing innovation to a tradition-bound industry. So I wasn't surprised by the recent email I received from Tim telling me about a clam- seeding initiative he and some local clammers undertook in mid-April. " e mudfl ats were just starting to fl ood," says Sheehan, telling me in a follow-up phone interview how eight clammers set out in two skiff s with 350,000 baby clams to broadcast onto the soft mud in synch with the advanc- ing tide. He fi gures the young clams had close to 20 hours of protection from seagulls — suffi cient time to burrow deep enough into the mudfl ats by the next afternoon's low tide to escape pre- dation. e early spring seeding also was timed to minimize predation from green crabs that are still in the deeper waters where they over-winter. e seeding project is a collective eff ort by the 250 local diggers who sell clams to the Sheehans' Gulf of Maine seafood business, which diverted $1 for every bushel of clams it purchased into a fund for buying baby seed clams from the Downeast Institute in Beals. e diggers selected two areas they thought held the greatest promise for rebuilding the clam populations: Hersey Cove in Pembroke and East Bay in Perry. More seeding is planned later this spring, paid for by local diggers and Gulf of Maine. " is is a starting point, a chance to gather 'round the idea that seeding might work," he says. " ese clams are going to take three to four years to mature. Let's see what happens." "I really hope they see a return," says Kyle Pepperman, a 2009 graduate of the University of Maine at Machias with a degree in marine biology who works as an aquaculture production and research assistant at the nonprofi t Downeast Institute. Investing in the future In the warmer waters of southern Maine, he says, the seed clams will reach the two-inch harvestable size in about a year. Although the three-to-four-times slower rate of growth in Cobscook Bay increases the likelihood of predation from green crabs, gulls, moon snails and the eff ects of digging before they reach harvestable size, Pepperman says the young clams will reach sexual maturity within a year. So, even if most of the 350,000 seed clams sown in Pembroke and Perry don't reach harvestable size, he says there's a good chance some of their off spring will end up in someone's chowder. "One clam can produce 20 million off spring," he says. "An investment in seed clams is an investment in the future of the industry." Pepperman says he would have liked to have seen the Pembroke and Perry clammers take it one step further by placing protective netting over the seeded fl ats for a year to keep out predators until the young clams are large enough to burrow to "refuge depth" in the mudfl ats. "With netting, we've seen 60% survive," he says. 'Tragedy of the commons' e rub, of course, is that the netting keeps clammers from digging in those fl ats for up to a year — a potential loss of income if other fl ats aren't available, or rich enough, for harvesting compa- rable quantities of clams. Such is the "tragedy of the com- mons," an economic theory that says shared resources such as clam fl ats inevi- tably put individual self-interest in con- fl ict with the common good of all users, potentially depleting that resource unless everyone agrees voluntarily to some lim- its. It's a conundrum that Maine's lobster industry seems to have reasonably solved with self-imposed limits such as notch- ing the tails of egg-bearing females before tossing them back into the ocean where they'll continue spawning. Can the clamming industry do the same? With Maine's softshell clam indus- try retaining its second place standing in overall value at $22.5 million in 2015, a record for the fi shery, despite a 1 mil- lion pound drop in landings, the small step of seeding mudfl ats just taken in Cobscook Bay (and already being done elsewhere) is an important one. Professional Theatre in Lewiston/Auburn Professional Theatre in Lewiston/Auburn PROFESSIONAL THEATRE FOR MAINE Season Underwriters: Austin Associates, Maine Magazine, Platz Associates, Sun Journal, WOXO, Z105.5, LAalerts.com Sponsored by: Baxter Brewing Co., Butler Bros., Patrons Insurance, Skelton, Taintor & Abbott thepublictheatre.org 782-3200 Who needs match.com when your grandmother knows a matchmaker? FREE pre-show wine tasting Thurs, 5/12 May 6 - 15 by Susan Sandler by Susan Sandler Crossing Delancey A DELIGHTFUL ROMANTIC COMEDY Seeding clams in Downeast Maine J M C , Mainebiz senior writer, can be reached at @ . and @ J M . Event Schedule Registration | Exhibits: 12:00 — 1:00 PM Program: 1:00 — 5:00 PM Networking: 5:00 — 6:00 PM For more information and to register, visit www.mereda.org E V E N T S P O N S O R S Today, rapid changes to work styles, expectations of younger generations, and accelerating technological advances are disrupting conventional notions of the office. Workers are abandoning the cubicle, first introduced 50 years ago, for "the new office," which requires less square footage than a decade ago, demands more open, flexible, and adaptable environments, and pays dividends on the bottom line. Attendees will learn: How to put ideas into action: deal with resistance to change and measure the benefits of a new way of working About the reverberations for commercial real estate, the spaces we build/own/lease, and how the Maine market is changing as a result MEREDA's 2016 Annual Real Estate Spring Conference: Office of the Future and the Future is Now Real world examples of how place and technology work together to improve employee engagement, performance, and well-being. Keynote Speakers: • Dean Strombom, AIA, LEED AP BD+C: Principal, Gensler, Houston, TX • Sven Govaars, MCR, SLCR: Strategist, Houston, TX May 17, 2016 1:00 – 5:00 PM Holiday Inn By the Bay This course has been APPROVED for 3 hours of real estate broker, architect, appraiser and legal continuing education credits.

• Cover