Beal mentioned in Press Herald report on farming littleneck clams

Brian Beal, a professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine at Machias, was mentioned in a Portland Press Herald article about a Maine wildlife biologist who is trying to farm littleneck clams. Maine has barely any experience in hard-shell clam aquaculture in part of because wild quahogs have such a limited and uneven history in the state, according to the article. Joe Porada started digging for quahogs in the late 1980s in the Goose Cove area of Trenton. Porada worried about the future; at the rate he was going, he could fish out all the clams in Goose Cove, the article states. In 2005, he decided to try to farm quahogs. He called Beal, and recalls him saying, “I have been waiting for this phone call for 25 years.” Porada worked with the Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education and secured funding via a 2006 grant from the Maine Technology Institute, with Beal providing the baby clams and research support, the Press Herald reported. Together, they published a paper in the Journal of Shellfish Research in 2009 outlining their positive findings. “Hard clam farming in eastern Maine may help diversify a wild shellfish industry that is currently in decline for most species except lobsters,” the paper stated. It also called for additional efforts to explore alternative methods and sites.