Carl LoBue, Senior Marine Scientist, The Nature Conservancy Topic: The Value of Restoring Shellfish

1. TNC’s shellfish restoration
efforts on Long Island NY:
Achievements, lessons
learned, and next steps
Baird Symposium: The
Future of Shellfish in RI
Nov 14, 2013
Carl LoBue, clobue@tnc.org

2. Ultimate objective
Restore LI estuaries to thriving, healthy, naturally
productive, self-sustaining ecosystems that benefit
people and nature

3. Key estuarine/coastal biogenic
habitats

4. Why Shellfish?
No clam
s
2 clam
s
4 clam
s
8 clam
s
Great South Bay NY, circa 1976
16 clam
s

5. Four main challenges to bay-wide clam recovery
Water quality / clam food quality
Predation
Yum
Clams!
Recruitment limitation
Effective, coordinated
harvest management and
enforcement

6. Fishing and predation mortality
“Whether the clams were abundant or
scarce, commercial clammers on the Great
South Bay have always been free to take as
many as they want.”
Newsday 12/22/2009

7. Increasing production of
wild-born clams

8. Clam seed abundance and
distribution
Clam seed
abundance and
distribution

9. 2008 Brown Tide hits hard

10. GSB BT cell counts 2004-2012

11. Clam seed abundance and
distribution

12. 9
10
C ondition Inde x
Y-M e a n
G onadaR ank
Y-M e n
6
3
8
2
7
1
0
G onad R ank
5
Jan04
A pr04
Jul04
O ct04
Jan05
A pr05
Jul05
O ct05
Jan06
A pr06
Jul06
O ct06
Jan07
A pr07
Jul07
O ct07
Jan08
A pr08
Jul08
O ct08
Jan09
A pr09
Jul09
O ct09
Jan10
A pr10
Jul10
O ct10
Jan11
C ondi tion Index
Clam condition and spawning 2004-2010
4
G SB - T ran splan t Site A

13. Conditions in GSB in 2011

14. Toxic algae bloom dashed hopes for
2012 scallop season
“Scallops Suffer Massive Die-Off:
Red Tide May Be To Blame” EHS 10/23/12
Just a few weeks ago, baymen and shellfish
experts were brimming with optimism about
what was expected to be a banner bay
scallop harvest when the season opens next
month. Some pointed to the predictions as a
sign that the local scallop population had
finally gotten past the devastation wreaked by
brown tides in the 1980s and 1990s.
This week, much of that optimism has
evaporated.
Scientists from Long Island University.., said
they found as much as 90 percent mortality
rates in the mammoth “set” of bay scallops
that they recorded at the start of the summer

15. Sources of reactive nitrogen to
coastal waters
County land
use data
N-Load and
ELM models
quantify
sources of
Nitrogen
loaded to LI
bays
2008 Kinney and
Valiela + 2010 USGS

16. 33 GSB sub-watersheds

17. ˜ 1M people live in the GSB
groundwatershed
SWSD has ocean outfall
20% GW to Ocean

18. N loads to GSB from watershed
(684,000 kg N / yr)
Fire Island
2%
golf courses
lawns
2%
7%
agriculture
1%
atm to land
20%
septic/
cesspool
67%
atm to
STPs
water
1%
0%

19. Total N Loads to Great South Bay
(908,000 kg N/Yr)
lawns
5%
agriculture
0%
golf
Fire Island
courses
2%
1%
atm to land
15%
atm to
water
25%
septic/
cesspool
51%
STPs
1%

20. Linking development to groundwater N,
case study, Bicycle Path (Suffolk County 2011)

21. Other impacts of excessive algal
growth from nitrogen pollution
LIS hypoxia

22. Algae symptoms are island-wide

23. Nitrogen enrichment impacts on
seagrass from Butler (1999)
Eelgrass is Essential Fish Habitat
Thousands of acres of eelgrass have already disappeared

24. Nitrogen pollution impacts
on saltmarshes
Images from Nature 10/2012
CAT scans of marsh roots:
Failing
Stable
Healthy marsh Impacted marsh

25. Population gains still possible
Clam Seed Abundance and Distribution

26. New Sandy caused
Inlet in eastern GSB
Increased water
clarity
Lower dissolved
nutrients
Increased
circulation with
ocean water
Transit of marine
animals (fish and
seals)

27. Positive response
to new inlet /
impacts not
estuary wide

28. Unusually good growth near new
inlet (Bellport Bay July 2013)

29. Defining “RESTORATION”

30. Future of shellfish in RI?
• Articulate goals (fishery vs production
vs ecosystem)
• Address all major threats
• Think ahead
• Monitor / adapt
• LI vs VCR
• Commitment / Scale

31. Questions?

32. Development of the 2013 GSB
brown tide