Article by Earth Fix discussing the newly released, and long awaited study by the UW’s Washington Sea Grant on Geoduck farming affects on the beaches. Interestingly enough, the answer is a mixed bag, and you can read that as good and bad news. The good news is that the sediment layer creatures, (known as the benthic layer to scientists) is not much affected and recovers quickly, but that the fish living in the mud are more so. This should at least lead to better legislation about where and how many of these farms we want.
The state Legislature responded in 2007. It authorized research through Washington Sea Grant to look at the ecological impacts of geoduck aquaculture.
Five years later, the results are starting to come in. The verdict so far: Geoduck tubes and nets change the species makeup, but there’s no immediate cause for concern.
“What we can say is there are a lot of species that settle on the tubes and the netting that we would not otherwise see generally in that type of habitat,” says the University of Washington’s Glenn VanBlaricom. He’s one of the research effort’s leaders.
http://earthfix.opb.org/water/article/geoduck-farming-heddy/
And read the full report at:
http://wsg.washington.edu/research/pdfs/reports/GeoduckReport2011.pdf
I’ ve placed a permanent link to it on the left side of this blog, in the “Educational” section.
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
There does not seem to be a review of the effects of the use of mechanical and chemical agents to restrict “predators” that reduce productivity. This is an important omission as it alters the balance of the ecology in a most important way.