oth Davis adjusted his waders and stepped into the cool waters of Thorndyke Bay, his Crocs disappearing under a layer of thick, forest-green seaweed.
oth Davis adjusted his waders and stepped into the cool waters of Thorndyke Bay, his Crocs disappearing under a layer of thick, forest-green seaweed. Behind him, jagged Olympic peaks poked above the hilltops. Before him stretched 30 acres of oysters, clams and geoducks — the shellfish farm he’d run for 35 years.
A hundred feet from shore, Davis stooped over and reached a hand toward the muck, where a native cockle clam sat on the surface. “This right here,” he said, scooping up the clam, “this is the problem.”
Under ideal conditions, cockles bury themselves in sand or mud, resting in shallow waters. But the conditions at Baywater Shellfish are not always ideal. Every summer, Davis and shellfish farmers across the Washington coastline contend with an abundance of Ulva, a native seaweed that flourishes in tidelands. Commonly called “sea lettuce,” Ulva grows thick and heavy. Left unmitigated, it can smother life underneath.
Read more at: University of Washington
Shellfish farmer and marine biologist Joth Davis examines a cockle clam that struggled to survive under a thick layer of seaweed. (Photo Credit: Grant Blue Carbon, Green Fields)
