Sarasota Bay Watch conducted its first post-COVID-19 clam release on Saturday, Sept. 26. SBW board members and volunteers gathered at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron in the morning to transfer clams to Sarasota Bay. The clams were raised by clam farmer Carter Davis in Pine Island Sound.
Gulf Coast Eagle Distributing’s John Saputo provided a refrigerated truck to transport the clams and Mike Welch from Eagle drove the truck. Once at the Sailing Squadron, the clams were loaded on a barge provided by Larry Beggs of Reef Innovations.
Twenty high school students from Riverview, Venice and the Sarasota Military Academy received community service hours for their work. Community service is required for graduation, but has been hard to come by during the pandemic. Volunteers also provided 11 boats to the effort. Science partners including the Gulf Shellfish Institute, Mote Marine, Florida Sea Grant and Florida Atlantic University benefit from the deployment. They are conducting studies on predation and aquaculture. Whelks and rays, the main predators of clams, are being acoustically monitored at the release site.
CDC guidelines were followed during the event. All participants had their temperatures taken and were required to wear masks and social distance. SBW is scheduled to release more than 750,000 clams in 2020 and 2021.
