Central Coast crews protect Pismo clams from poaching.
While the populations are growing, they're too small to harvest
Pismo clam populations along Central Coast beaches are booming after decades of decline, but clammers should be aware that the shellfish are still too small to legally harvest.
Pilfering the clams before they’re able to reach a healthy size could hurt the chances that the pale and delicately striped Pismo clams will return to his
toric abundance along the Central Coast. California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers cited more poachers in 2020, including many in Santa Cruz County, than in any year since they started keeping records in 2017.
“For a long time, people were worried about us overharvesting them,” said Ben Ruttenberg, marine ecologist and director of the Cal Poly Center for Coastal Marine Sciences. “And yet, they seemed to be able to withstand the harvest,” he said. “Just in the last 25 years, we’ve started to see them disappear.” Over
harvesting and environmental factors are likely to blame, though Ruttenberg is currently researching the clams’ biology and ecology to find out more.
An ecologically important species, Pismo clams “filter tons of water, helping keep their coastal systems clean,” Ruttenberg said, “and they serve as food for lots of things, including fish and sea otters.”
What’s more, the clams “are really important for people culturally who identify with this activity,” Ruttenberg said. Pismo clams were harvested first by the Chumash people, then for California’s commercial fishery through World War II, and since then as a cherished part of the state’s recreational fishery.
Pismo Beach even adopted the motto “Clam Capital of the World” in the 1950s, and Ruttenberg added that beachgoers who see him surveying clams frequently tell him of family clamming traditions passed down through generations. “Now, for a lot of people,” Ruttenberg said, “that connection is starting to be broken.”
Since July, Fish and Wildlife officers have seized around 7,000 undersized Pismo clams and issued more than 75 citations to people caught har vesting the clams in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. The numbers increase by 25,000 clams and 250 citations when including San Luis Obispo County.
In order to lawfully collect, clammers must have a valid fishing license and accurate measuring tool on hand to ensure that clams are minimum size: 5 inches in diameter for clams in Santa Cruz County and northwards, and 4½ inches for any clams southward. Since the department started keeping track of clamming records in 2017, no legally sized clams have been collected.
While clammers can take up to 10 legally sized clams during the open season, many of the issued citations have been for clam bounties far surpassing the limit of a legal harvest. About 90% of citations were issued to people harvesting clams without a fishing license.
Fish and Wildlife’s Lt. Jeff Heitzenrater recalled a weekend on the beaches of Santa Cruz when a group of the department’s wardens “seized somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 clams and issued nearly 50 citations,” he said. “We filled a truckbed full of clams.”
Generally, a clammer can be spotted wading in the water anywhere up to their knees, and either digging around with a shovel or stirring up the sand with their feet — “like they’re doing the Twist, or the Chubby Checker,” Heitzenrater said.
Then “we’ll sit back and watch” to confirm that the person is picking up clams and carrying them back up the beach, he said.
After law enforcement officers measure the clams and issue any necessary citations, they either have the poachers return the clams to their sandy beds or will take shovels out to rebury the clams themselves. The vast majority of confiscated clams are returned to the wild this way.
Pismo clams are slowgrowing animals that need at least five to 10 years before they reach legal harvest size, Ruttenberg said. In the last five years, Ruttenberg noted that “we’ve seen a series of what looks like recruitment events — these little baby clams showing up on beaches in pulses.”
This is a good sign for the population, but these clams must be allowed time to grow. For shellfish, the bigger the individual, the more eggs it can produce, so size definitely matters.
A Fish and Wildlife press release also asks beachgoers to avoid disturbing clam beds, which look like round formations in the sand created by the clams expelling sand from their siphons.
“There are reasons that we have regulations for Pismo clams,” Ruttenberg said. “The idea is to let them get to that legal size, where they’ve had several opportunities to reproduce before harvesting. That’s the one thing that’s going to help us ensure that these populations are sustainable over the long term.”