Babylon Officials Transplant Live Hard Clams into Great South Bay - Patch.com

BABYLON, NY — Town of Babylon officials gathered at the Babylon Village pool on Friday, as part of an annual initiative to support the decline of hard shell clams in the Great South Bay.

Throughout the month of October, the Town of Babylon's Department of Environmental Control, or DEC, has been transplanting thousands of live hard clams into the bay as part of the annual Hard Clam Program. The program, which began in 1986, is a yearly initiative meant to restock the area of the Great South Bay known as "spawner sanctuary."

According to the program's website, shellfish have faced "a precipitous harvest drop-off since the 1970s", due to several factors, including New York's commercial hard clam industry.

The location was picked based on a study conducted by Stony Brook prior to 1986. The overall intention of the program is to place adult clams in specific areas where they will reproduce.

"The clam population is currently spread so thin that we don't get the fertilization in the water that we used to get back in the day," said Waterways Management Supervisor Brian Zitani. "Our goal is to try and manifest natural reproduction among clams with the hope of helping to increase the population size."

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