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The Sound School Inter-District Marine Education Program Newsletter
Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science Through History
IMEP #10
Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area managers
Understanding Science through History
Habitat Histories for Clinton Harbor and Niantic Bay, Connecticut
The Great Heat and The Rise of Razor Fish – A Cape Cod Account

Timothy Visel
The Sound School
January 2014

This Appendix first appeared for a paper delivered to:
Milford Aquaculture Conference March 12-14, 2012 in Westbrook, CT and Conversations with John “Clint” Hammond and George McNeil, Oyster Growers in the 1960s. Mr. Hammond was an oyster grower on Cape Cod; George McNeil had oyster bed in New Haven and Clinton Harbor, CT. When the question of eelgrass came up, both offered very similar opinions about it.

Mr. John Hammond of Chatham, Massachusetts felt strongly that eelgrass was definitely a bad neighbor to shellfish populations, and that it (this strain) perhaps was invasive, brought over with the ships to our shores from England. The first settlers came in a very cold period and Zostera at first did not do well, he thought, but it did establish itself in shallow warmer salt ponds and creeks, perhaps competing with or displacing other plant species including even perhaps native Zostera (eelgrass) strains. In warm periods it would form meadows and in colder, storm filled periods, storms actually helped it spread by seed dispersal to other shallows. He felt as his own experiences with it on Cape Cod it was cyclic—changing greatly during warm and cold periods. According to Mr. Hammond, that is what happened in the Oyster Pond River in Chatham. He was also investigating a possible source of eelgrass introduction as packing material for green crabs or shellfish carried to our shores. Mr. Hammond knew that packing shellfish in a wood barrel was an art necessary for long voyages; shellfish could not be shipped too loosely; they had to be packed tight to prevent chipping and kept moist. The shellfish industry for centuries had used wet seaweed to prevent chipping from waves (during transit) action and to keep the shellfish alive. Another advantage, he noticed, is as a soil fertilizer; it didn’t really rot but was consumed by “composters” in his gardens. Another possibility and he was focusing upon the fact that in the 1500s and 1600s the green crab-- Carcinus maenas was an edible fishery of England in the Thames River estuary.
It is in some parts of England today that it is known this fishery continues; in fact, green crab recipes are on the Internet and very easy to attain. He believed eelgrass or at least the strain he was dealing with was not natural and had pressed eelgrass blade samples on heavy biological paper (seaweed press) from the Thames River (source unknown). He felt that some live green crabs were taken on as cargo, hundreds of years ago, most likely as food for the crew and eelgrass was also used to keep the crabs “fresh” or moist. (This practice still is used in the shipment of lobsters and blue crabs). Some had died in transit in high heat, he speculated and perhaps barrels of crabs were dumped overboard here with whole eelgrass plants. During colder weather, crabs could semi hibernate and survived the crossing here. He felt that this exchange occurred often during the first ships here and the hundreds of trips later on. He felt that this is how the green crabs arrived here as food, perhaps multiple times and he was very suspicious that perhaps eelgrass arrived here in the same way; he was just unable to prove it.

Mr. Hammond was also researching the impacts of temperature and climate upon shellfish abundance. His area of research was surrounding Pleasant Bay – Orleans, Chatham and the Monomoy barrier spit. The region mirrors the environmental history from the 1900s, good bay scallop years were few by the late teens, then almost nonexistent. The cooling and dramatic increases in energy provided conditions more suitable for the Quahog and bay scallops after the 1930s. In 1953 in fact, a scallop war between Chatham and Orleans occurred over the division of Pleasant Bay; a separate reference mentions a boundary line was moved apparently to capture more of new abundant scallop crop (Eldridge, 2000). Today in the midst, perhaps end of the Second Great Heat, Scallops are scarce today in Pleasant Bay. Some good years have been reported but they have usually followed colder winters and strong storms.

Even as the very warm 1920s closed, the islands off Cape Cod experienced unprecedented declines in Squeteague (weakfish) and summer flounder (fluke) which once formed huge schools off beaches on summer evenings. The catches from fish traps was tremendous, but these fisheries collapsed and on page 52 off Martha’s Vineyard, A Short History and Guide (1953) is found this quote (Joseph Chase Allen)

“Climatic change is largely blamed for the failure of the [island] fisheries – a warming of the water which has driven native fish to colder latitudes. Should this be true, and should it continue, then Vineyard waters may witness the gradual influx of southern fish.”

Mr. Hammond felt a large scale species shift was underway again (1980s); it was getting warmer and the “Cape fish” had moved north. He was worried about cold water fish such as cod. The Cape and Islands had seen such shellfish reversals before according to Mr. Hammond. That also occurred on the Cape; here thousands of barrels of soft shell clams were dug in Barnstable Harbor for Boston and New York hotels, the peak years, beginning 1910-1925 (Kittredge, 1930). But that came to an end in 1927 and restrictions on the year round soft shell clam open season. It was getting colder and storm intensity increased. The soft shell clam resource was contracting but at the same time quahog harvests increased. Kittredge, 1930 describes the bull rake fishery, now developed on Cape Cod- “He hauls his rake up and culls out the quahogs from the mixture of sand and eelgrass with which its net-basket is filled (pg 202). The Cape oyster industry was also declining; it was turning stormier and colder. The island of Nantucket was the first to notice the transition, 1918 the island experienced a “freeze up” but nothing like the Winter of 1920 which was still frozen in March 1920, amidst a shortage of heating coal (Nantucket, the Last 100 Years 2001). As the winters turned colder and storm filled, the soft shell fishery would collapse, replaced by a climbing quahog hard clam fishery and now, a renewed bay scallop harvest. By that time, the huge bay scallop fisheries of the 1870s on Cape Cod were nearly forgotten.

Other regional examples exist and bay scallop areas in Connecticut also showed the same response; one of these was the Poquonock River in Groton. Here a response of shellfish species to climate and energy pathways namely oysters and soft shell clams and by bay scallops and quahogs is quite evident. Also this system has a history of barrier beach breaks and stagnation of waters during hot cycles. In 1881, for instance, oyster growers were ordered to remove oyster brush spat collectors in the Poquonnock River per recommendations of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Oyster sets then were intense, (it was hot), however, there were no bay scallops, but a dreadful stench in high heat in stagnant eelgrass was felt to be the source of scarlet fever as brush trapped eelgrass causing it to rot in stagnant waters producing strong smells in hot weather. (Kimball 1984; Collins 1887). These smells were most likely hydrogen sulfide. There were no bay scallops.
In 1948, however, after several hurricanes and increasingly cold winters bay scallops production surged to 25,000 bushels in the Poquonnock River, Groton, and a fifteen bushels per day limit frequently met, but by 1982 not a single scallop was found, but oyster sets were now again intense. (Kimball 1984). It was now getting warmer again.

At the end of The Great Heat which ended in northern areas in 1918 when the Cape Cod Islands started re-icing (especially Nantucket) Cape Cod, something unusual began in 1908, dramatic increase in razor clam populations (1912). It was called razor fish then (Earle Rich 1973).

Razor clams, Ensis directis like periodic cultivation and warmth, but were very hard to dig. During the hot period in CT 1882, a clam gun was invented in Guilford CT. Here a cylinder (metal) was equipped with a valve. You would position the open end of the cylinder over a clam hole, and push it into the flat, close the valve and the large chunk of flat came up in the cylinder much like a modern core sampler in the sample was a giant soft shell or a razor clam. The clam gun has been reinvented in the West coast for gathering razor clams using PVC plastic pipe, but I think the metal foundry workers of Guilford and shell fishers there should get credit for the invention and I leave readers this quote and you can decide for yourself.

The following document, reprinted without change, is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (1889) pages 91 to “The Oyster Industry” received for record Dept. of Environmental Protection Office of Long Island Sound Programs 1/11/94.
Guilford – pages 136-137

E. A. Crittenden of Guilford says: “Fifteen years ago twenty or thirty men caught fifty bushels of oysters daily for two or three months in the East River. The average annual catch is now about 6,000 bushels of two year olds. The oysters sell for from twenty-five to forty cents a bushel.”

Fifteen years ago quite a number of men made a living by clamming. Clams have been scarce for two years. The tides have not been low enough to get at the big clams. These clams are to some extent dug by using a cylinder of sheet iron about twenty inches in length and five inches in diameter. The top of the cylinder has a metal head in which is an aircock or hold for a vent-plug. Attached to the pipe or cylinder are two irons through which a handle is slipped. The operation of capturing the clam is performed by placing the pipe over the vertical blow-hole made by the clam through the sand to the surface. The aircock is opened or the vent -plug removed, and the pipe is worked down to the depth necessary to reach the clam. The air-cock is then turned or the plug put in, and the column of material in the cylinder is drawn up and the clam taken out. These clams are sold for about three cents each.
I, myself can recall one Connecticut enormous razor clam set, because I swam into it. While wading off Tom’s Creek in the early 1970s (Madison, CT), I felt impacts like sand or pebbles hitting me, at first I thought someone was throwing sand or shell pieces at me, but looking into the water I soon realized that the bumps were inch long small razor clams propelling themselves sideways at the surface. Within a few moments we saw the characteristic splashes of small stripers having a feed, there were billions of them (razor clams). I think at that point I was running for a fishing rod. We always knew razors were around; their shells often were cast up by a storm, but had never seen razor clams like this in the water before.

In the winter time, two or three adult razor clams would get washed up whole, shell intact along Hammonasset Beach. They didn’t last long with our seagulls on our beaches. In the 1980s I would also see them in hydraulic clam dredges off Guilford and Madison Connecticut shores in 15 to 25 feet of water.

In a very curious case, the end of The Great Heat (1900-1920) marked a sudden huge upsurge in “razor fish” on Cape Cod. The razor clams had entire gangs of fishermen then who used to compete against each other for catches (Earle Rich 1973), but the increase of razor clams was hard to miss and explains why the Guilford clam gun was invented during this very warm period. The hundreds of razor holes in a given area was a sign of great densities. The upturn in razor clams just occurred before it started to get colder 1912-1918 on the Cape. By 1922, the winters were harsh and bay scallops started to return; razor clams became scarce. In 2002 I started to receive phone calls about an increase in razor clams in Connecticut and by May 2010, had become very abundant in the Guilford, Connecticut shoreline (personal communication, Alison Varian, May 2010)

It is thought that this species razor clams likes warm (but not extremely hot) and recently cultivated soils after a barrier spit break or strong storm. With warm waters, razor clams were able to expand habitat into shallows such as Guilford, CT observation. It was thought to follow areas first set by the soft shell clam Mya, and the two habitat clocks often overlapped soft shells and razors together in the same flat, but very cold temperatures seem to push them out to deeper waters and by the 1950s, razor clams grew scarce on the Cape according to John Hammond. This change was more than offset by the increase in bay scallops and hard shell clams at the time especially in Pleasant Bay between Orleans and Chatham, Massachusetts. Since 2012, reports of razor clams mixed with soft shells in recreational fishing areas have declined.

Mr. Hammond said it was back breaking work to dig them (razors), and only a few fishermen had mastered it; one being Creighton Nickerson, who used a plank as part of the digging process; what razors clams are around now is nowhere near what it had been decades ago (1980-83). By the time I met Phil Schwind (who reinforced the negative atmosphere about eelgrass and in his book “Making a Living Along Shore,”) he commented that the razor clam fishery was now very low – poor and only a few old timers knew how to dig them, one of them was Mr. Nickerson, who called them a “fish” and not a clam, thinking at the time it was because they could swim, recalling my high school experience of swimming amongst them. Instead I was told by Mr. Hammond, it was how fast they could swim in the sand- but once out actually crawl out and move. After watching Mr. Nickerson one day in Chatham dig them (he used a plank in the process), I soon abandoned any hope of capturing them when disturbed, and they quickly went deep into the flat. I had my first bowl of razor clam chowder at Ron Ribbs’ metal shop in 1981—it was fantastic and why the effort to obtain them.

Questions about Eelgrass-

Mr. Hammond often talked at great length about the Chatham Monomoy barrier island/barrier inlet system. However, he pressed me for any Connecticut examples of similar systems in which I could study/research similar responses. I told him I knew of two such barrier spit systems, one close to my home in Madison, CT, one was Niantic Bay, East Lyme, and Waterford, and the other was Clinton Harbor. By the time I met Mr. Hammond, I was well acquainted with both barrier beach inlet systems. However the multiple openings into Niantic Bay which once contained a series of rope ferries were filled all but the most easterly opening. Clinton Harbor had a local opening called the Dardanells, but that was closed in the late 1940s with the cabling together of abandoned automobiles to make a necklace of scrapped cars (George McNeil personal communications 1980s). When the Dardanelles were closed the inner Clinton harbor started to fill in, both according to Mr. Hammond would contain habitat histories of previous barrier split openings and closings.

Niantic Bay is a unique situation because its barrier spit has been substantially hardened and the multiple openings and storm induced breaches was last recorded in 1815. The spit unable to open because of intense fortifications/hardening did not allow periodic breaks or cleanings. At these times according to Mr. Hammond, strong waves and currents would actually “scrub” the bottoms free of organic matter. He had seen that happen on the Cape. Storms and waves after a breach tore up soft stagnant accumulations-- sometimes to previous sandy soils.

Therefore, its ability to remove excess organics stored or banked during The Great Heat was substantially delayed, it would take years of cold and energy to remove accumulated compost, so eelgrass returned first to the bay as soon as the energy stopped, then to Niantic River, and a habitat clock overlap occurred; scallops still had suitable habitat while eelgrass habitat wise gained a strong foothold. Eelgrass meadows during The Great Heat were dense in Niantic Bay but the 1931 an October snow storm/hurricane may have stressed eelgrass populations along our coast. Flood waters and storms could have dislodged enormous amounts of leaves, wood debris, sticks and other detritus debris suffocating eelgrass roots weakening the plant allowing it to be overcome by various diseases. In June 1931, it was extremely hot and could have stressed the plants even further. A worldwide fungal infection spread quickly into eelgrass populations. By the 1940s, eelgrass was gone, the victim of molds, but by the late 1960s, it was back. It is in Niantic Bay that NOAA NMFS used dynamite in an effort to restore tidal circulation there in 1974-1976. Eelgrass had grown so dense that according to local fishers, it nearly had stopped the tides.

George McNeil, Clinton CT – Lower Hammonasset River
Clinton Harbor-Hammonasset River- Mr. McNeil felt was the best area to study species habitat shifts. Its barrier beach is largely intact - Cedar Island, although obvious cut lobes still are visible from aerial photography and old maps (Cedar Island has a long history of barrier breach breaks)- clearly shows a barrier inlet called the Dardanelles. In periods of cold and storms, offshore eelgrass meadows flourished in Clinton Harbor, outside of the cut south of Cedar Island. George McNeil and other fishermen felt the break allowed organic debris to nourish the offshore eelgrass meadows offshore and they were absolutely correct. Scallops flourished in the deeper channels adjacent to the eelgrass meadows. Mr. McNeil had watched as eelgrass spread on the clam flats to the edge of the river channel itself; he noticed it would collect leaves coming down river and it increased in height over the clam bed. When the inlet was closed, leaves and sticks accumulated inside the barrier beach, bottoms became softer, filled with muck, Sapropel, the eelgrass that lived here was over a previously hard bottom which at one time was a popular soft shell clamming area. When the inlet was opened, the fisheries improved, it allowed the built up organic matter to disappear as colder waters entered. In the 1930s and 1040s, winter flounder were dense on the oyster beds (George McNeil, personal communication). After the Dardanelles was filled for the last time with abandoned automobiles strung together on wire cables, (there was so much tidal exchange) the bay scallops disappeared, the eelgrass offshore was starved of its leaves (food) and left. The inside harbor became soft again. After a few years eelgrass meadows grew in areas that once supported both soft shell clams and winter flounder. The dense eelgrass meadow covered and then suffocated the soft shell clams below; any razor fish would have been suffocated also.

These buried soft shell clam beds were uncovered by me at the urging of George McNeil in the early 1980s (Tim Visel survey). As The Great Heat ended, soft shell clam sets failed, and razor fish (clams) became scarce in Connecticut and on Cape Cod.

For more information about Clinton Harbor during The Great Heat, see Clinton Harbor and The Great Heat – Connecticut Shoreline Task Force website. This was a March 21, 2012 presentation to the Clinton Lion’s Club; Peter Niles, President; Richard Santanelli, Membership Chairman. It has become our most viewed Adult Education Publication. It is also available at www.housedems.ct.gov as “Clinton Harbor and The Great Heat” (18 pages).
The HIFFM IMEP Newsletter is possible by an Inter-District Cooperative Grant (Public Act 94 -1) and regional marine education bulletins can be obtained or accessed on the Adult Education and Outreach directory by accessing the Sound School website: www.soundschool.com/publications%201.html.
For information about The Sound School website, publications, and / or alumni contacts, please contact Taylor Samuels at taylor.samuels@new-haven.k12.ct.us

The Sound School is a Regional High School Agriculture Science and Technology Center enrolling students from 23 participating Connecticut communities.

Program reports are available upon request. For more information about New Haven Environmental Monitoring Initiative for IMEP reports, please contact Susan Weber, The Sound School Adult Education and Outreach Program Coordinator, at susan.weber@new-haven.k12.ct.us.

The HIFFM IMEP Newsletter is possible by an Inter-District Cooperative Grant (Public Act 94 -1) and regional marine education bulletins can be obtained or accessed on the Adult Education and Outreach directory by accessing the Sound School website:

www.soundschool.com/publications%201.html.
For information about The Sound School website, publications, and / or alumni contacts, please contact Taylor Samuels at taylor.samuels@new-haven.k12.ct.us

The Sound School is a Regional High School Agriculture Science and Technology Center enrolling students from 23 participating Connecticut communities.

Program reports are available upon request. For more information about New Haven Environmental Monitoring Initiative for IMEP reports, please contact Susan Weber, The Sound School Adult Education and Outreach Program Coordinator, at susan.weber@new-haven.k12.ct.us.