Maine’s unrelenting spring rains had resulted in the temporary closing of clam flats state-wide by Saturday morning, May 28, but didn’t deter an intrepid band of clammers and Island Heritage Trust folks from venturing out on the Causeway Basin in Deer Isle.
A special permit to be on the closed flats in pocket, they fanned out under the watchful eye of Kathleen Billings of the Deer Isle Stonington Shellfish Committee, with Blaine Olsen of Oceanville and Dana Morse, Marine Extension agent with the Darling Marine Center, leading the slog through the mud.
Continuing a three-year clam restoration project at this spot, the group laid out a variety of materials to test as “clam tents” to encourage the settling of clam spat and protect them from subsequent predation.
The various geotextiles used in the clam tenting experiments were originally intended for erosion control, and erosion control was one of the objectives of the Island Heritage Trust’s work party on the adjacent Bowcat overlook. The primitive path there was being rerouted and alien plant species were removed.
Together, the island’s land trust and marine shellfish committee held a cookout on the Causeway Beach afterwards. One of the goals of the trust is helping to secure shore access for the clammers. Last year the trust managed to purchase a major part of Carney Island and the small parking area at the Little Deer Isle end of the causeway, and received the Causeway Beach, thus helping protect the ecological future of the basin, which was once one of the island’s most productive clamming areas.
In 1999 the Deer Isle-Stonington Shellfish Committee persuaded the two towns to adopt an ordinance limiting commercial clam licenses principally to island residents. Previously, off-island clammers had cleaned out several prime areas. Island clam buyers no longer purchase any clams from such diggers who not uncommonly include undersized clams.
“I’ve been clamming here since I was four. My grandfather taught me,” said Chandler Eaton. “We never took the tiny ones and always left the biggest ones as seeders. I always had all the clams I could dig in the spots we took care of that way.”
Biologist Dana Morse taught the clammers how to gather scientific census data for crucial environmental baseline studies and the comparative reseeding tests, and he listened attentively to the men and women diggers with their extensive local knowledge. Muddy but smiling, the group then adjourned to the beach for what passing traffic probably assumed was an unusual tailgate party, a beach barbeque of the most intrepid sort.
As the fog moved in and then receded in classic Maine midmorning fashion around Carney Island, a pair of bald eagles came and went to feed their two chicks in the new nest established there. Deer Isle now leads the state in successful eagle nesting, most of them on protected lands owned or managed by the Island Heritage Trust.
As Dorothy Powell, the island’s no-nonsense clam warden sauntered over to take a look through the telescope, the clammers joked, “Anybody out on the flats had better watch out. Dot can see you real good now.”