START continues to provide funding support for the Sarasota Bay Watch’s important Clam Seeding Program in Sarasota Bay.  The Southern Quahog Clam is a native species to our coastal waters and like oysters described above have been decimated by urban growth and declining water quality. Like oysters, they are a formidable natural ally in improving water quality. Young adult clams can filter from 9 to 12 gallons of seawater a day.  As they mature and grow larger, their capacity increases and they can filter as much as 20 gallons of water a day. In addition, clams have a long lifespan of thirty years or more and their production of bio feces in the sediment improves the terrain for seagrass growth.

Since its initial seeding project back in 2016, The Sarasota Bay Watch has placed over 2 million clams in different locations in Sarasota Bay. With an average filtering capacity of 10 gallons a day, this means that the clams seeded in this program have the potential to filter over 20 million gallons of seawater in Sarasota Bay every single day.

The Bradenton Beach seeding project is an innovative expansion of the program because it involves older, broodstock clams that survived the 2022 red tide bloom that plagued the Gulf Coast for over a year. Because the clams were raised during the red tide bloom, they could not be harvested at their smaller, more marketable size for restaurant use. As they grew larger and larger, they would have been considered to be too tough for normal half shell consumption by restaurant diners and relegated to lower priced “Chowder Stock”.

While the larger, broodstock clams are of less value as a food source, they are especially desirable for clam restoration. Their larger size makes them virtually predator proof and they can filter over 20 gallons of seawater a day or nearly twice as much water recycled by the smaller clams typically used in restoration projects. In addition, they are called broodstock because these females will each release from 16 to 24 million eggs several times a year to help repopulate the Bay with clams.

This innovative project also offers our economically challenged clam farmers a valuable source of income to counter balance some of the lost revenue from the ravages of red tide. They now have a new secondary restoration market for their more mature clams. With the growing recognition around the state of the value of oyster and clam restoration projects to improve the water quality in our coastal waters, the restoration market will undoubtedly grow as a meaningful source of revenue for our clam farmers.

By the end of 2025, the seeding program had established four different clam populations in Sarasota Bay. Two in Manatee County near Long Bar Point and in Palma Sola Bay and two test sites in South Sarasota County in Venice and in Lemon Bay. The Sarasota Bay Watch will continue its seeding program in these locations throughout 2026 and beyond.