Early in the mornings, it’s common to see people hard at work in the mudflats off of Brunswick, digging up soft-shelled clams or quahogs.
But as the Gulf of Maine warms, the population of one of those species — soft-shelled clams — is dropping, and the town with one of the state’s most comprehensive shellfish ordinances is having to take a hard look at its regulations.
Those issues are now coming to a head, with Brunswick town councilors voting this week to close a popular clam-digging area, Thomas Point Beach, through at least the fall, and also to review the town’s shellfish ordinance.
Clams have historically been Maine’s second-most valuable fishery after lobster, but landings have declined nearly 75 percent since the late 1970s, driven largely by the predation of invasive green crabs that have moved into the warming waters.
Brunswick keeps this in mind when doling out shellfish licenses, conducting surveys of the clam population every two years, then using an equation to determine the number that are awarded and how many bushels each clammer can harvest.
But after an algal bloom decimated Brunswick’s clams in 2022, soft-shell numbers are even lower now, and while the town worries about conserving the emerging population of juveniles, harvesters are also worrying about their own livelihoods.
Monday night, the town council voted to close Thomas Point Beach, one of the biggest local digging sites, to protect a large number of soft-shell clam seeds found in the mud there and give the juveniles time to grow up. Officials then plan to re-survey the area in the fall.
The closure still has to be approved by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, but the agency recently sent a letter to Brunswick saying it “would be a rare situation” in which it doesn’t approve a town-proposed closure.
While some harvesters supported the closure, which was recommended by the town’s Marine Resource Committee, others told councilors this week it would affect their livelihoods.
“Where is everybody going to dig for clams? There’s not much out there,” said shellfish harvester Raymond Trombley at the Monday night meeting.
Camden Reiss, a recent chair of the Marine Resource Committee, said overharvesting is one of the biggest issues facing clam-diggers in Brunswick. For example, with Thomas Point Beach closed, the harvesters who depend on clamming for income will move to the smaller mudflats, Reiss said.
“Unfortunately, we’re at a point though, where conservation is really hard for us because people still have to make a living,” Reiss said. “And everything is depleted down to the point where if you close one major area, everyone else is gonna go to the next major area or all the other minor areas and deplete those resources down until it’s not efficiently recycling the product every year.”
Reiss argued that the root cause of the overharvesting is over-licensing. He and other harvesters complained at the council meeting that the town gives out more licenses than the mudflats can support.
After trying to get the town to address the overharvesting for months, Reiss and another digger have made headway in getting Brunswick officials to do a full review of its shellfish ordinance.
That ordinance, which regulates and manages shellfish harvesting in the town, hasn’t been reviewed in its entirety in at least two decades, said Brunswick Interim Town Manager Julia Henze. She expects the process to take around nine months.
The goal, Henze said, is to review the ordinance and determine why the town has one, what its priorities are, and how it’s managed.
It’s unclear what changes could come out of that review, but Reiss named a few he would support. For example, in case the clam population declines like it did in 2022, he said the town could determine the maximum number of licenses it can give out, and award five to 10 fewer to prevent overharvesting.
Reiss also suggested the town make changes that would allow harvesters to maintain a residential license after moving out of Brunswick, since living costs in town continue to climb.
And, Reiss said the town will likely discuss decreasing the amount of bushels that people with student licenses can harvest at an upcoming meeting.
While Reiss was granted his clamming license three years ago, he said that prioritizing the people who have been in the industry for years may ultimately be more fair.
“I love clamming and I love clamming in Brunswick, but it’s not fair to the people that have been doing this all their life, just to add licenses every time we can add a few more licenses, according to the survey,” Reiss said. “And then you have these really bad years that happen. And we have not a lot of product for everyone to make a living at.”
