START is pleased to announce its continued help to fund the Sarasota Bay Watch’s expanding clam seeding program in Sarasota Bay. Clams are of great importance in our marine ecosystem because they are excellent filter feeders that improve water quality, they can live for over thirty years and they are very resistant to red tide. [...]
Thanks everyone for another great clam release! It was the 5th release in our 250,000 clam pilot restoration project. Professional clam farmer Carter Davis, as always, greeted us in Pine Island with the clams freshly harvested and ready to go. Finn, Josh, Will and Val – our stalwart loading team – were on hand and [...]
The Shoreline Shindig hosted by START and Realize Bradenton on Saturday, October 13th along the Riverwalk in Bradenton was a very enjoyable event attracting over 300 people like the three well-known visitors shown above. Everyone gathered to celebrate the importance of our shoreline and waterways and hear original acoustic music from local band Passerine. They [...]
Red Tide Is Everybody’s Problem Algal blooms, including red tides, are natural occurrences. They are part of the complex life cycles and ecological balance of our marine ecosystem. However, excess nutrient pollutants, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, from human activity can disrupt the nature’s balance creating devastating blooms in our waterways that are more intense, [...]
CLAM JAM Recently Sarasota Bay Watch expanded its Shellfish Restoration Program to include southern hard shell clams. Why? Because these once abundant clams are needed back in the bay. They filter water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (up to 50 gallons/day/adult clam), so they are excellent at removing excess nutrients, which helps [...]
About 18 months ago we started out with 330,000 tiny clam babies, and have been carefully growing them in the Boca Grande under the watchful eye of a professional clam farmer. Despite some normal losses during growing, and unanticipated losses from Hurricane Irma, we are the proud parents of 200,000 top-neck size clams! These clams [...]
WHERE HAVE ALL THE CLAMS GONE? Southern hard shell clams were once abundant in our waters, but now are almost entirely gone. Sarasota Bay Watch is working to bring them back. Since late 2016 SBW has been growing 200,000 of these native clams under the watchful eye of a professional clam farmer in the Boca [...]
