April 19 - WorldCatch News Network - An acute shortage of wild-harvested ocean and surf clams is causing much concern among East Coast processors who have had to raise the prices they charge buyers of value-added clam products, while also raising the prices they pay to the boats to harvest more.

Clam processor, Sea Watch International Ltd., based in Easton, MD, recently sent out a press release titled “Clam Industry Shortage – Worst Seen in Years” citing a plummet in the quahog catch and rise in prices to buyers.

“We’re so far behind that this [supply shortage] will continue for the year,” a Sea Watch representative told WorldCatch News Network. “So, we’re constantly going to be behind.”

Warren, RI –based Blount Seafood is a much smaller player in the ocean clam business, but President Todd Blount said his company has also had to raise prices on ocean clam products such as fried clams and clam chowder due to the current market conditions.

“We concur [with Sea Watch],” Blount said. “We are experiencing the same problem.”

The “problem” stems from a major shortage in the harvest of ocean, or quahog, clams, which has pushed up the demand for sea, or surf, clams. Both species are sometimes used interchangeably for products such as fried clams strips and clam chowder.

The lack of effort, and consequent supply, in the quahog fishery is mainly due to the higher costs and danger, especially in the winter months, of traveling further out to sea to harvest them.

Ocean, or quahog, clams are harvested at depths between 80 and 300 feet.

The 2001 quota for quahogs harvested in federal waters is 4.5 million bushels, which is the same as last year’s quota.

However, last year’s harvest of quahogs was “significantly less” than the quota coming in at just 3.142 million bushels, according to Clay Heaton, fishery management specialist at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

And Sea Watch said in its press release that so far this year “a trend of substantially less quahog harvesting than in 2000” is becoming evident.

Due to the quahog shortfall, sea, or surf, clams have come under significant “pressure from a supply and cost standpoint” and are now in very short supply, according to Sea Watch.

Surf, or sea, clams are harvested at depths between 20 and 80 feet. Higher fuel prices are being blamed as a main contributor to those higher costs and the reason most fishermen are targeting sea clams.

In addition, surf clams are a more valuable product, influencing fishing decisions by the fleet.

Sea Watch also said the reduction in quahog harvest is because more “vessel owners are utilizing their boats for more lucrative fishing industries such as scalloping.”

“No additional vessels have entered into quahog harvesting since 1995 and those that remain continue to decline in catching power, which is directly attributable to the unprofitability of quahog harvesting,” the company added.

In order to entice fishermen to target more heavily the quahog fishery, clam processors have raised prices to the boats for their quahog landings.

“We have made it more profitable to the boats to go after quahogs,” the Sea Watch representative said. “We had to make it so boats would go after both.”

The 2001 quota for surf clams in federal waters is 2.85 million bushels. Last year, the entire quota of 2.565 million bushels was harvested, according to Heaton.

Blount said while he believes prices will settle “back into balance within the next six months”, he is unsure whether a decrease in wholesale prices back to last year’s levels will ever happen.

Nor is he sure if they should.

“[Product] is now being sold much more close to reality,” he said.

Joe Chabus, spokesperson for the Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain, which purchases a large amount of clams, declined to confirm whether his company is, in fact, paying higher prices for its surf and ocean clams, claiming it is “proprietary information.”

However, he said his company has 32 years of experience in dealing with the change in supply of seafood including clams.

“We long ago figured out how to take [price] fluctuations into account,” Chabus said. “We learn to work with the market.”

Clam shortage causing concern for industry