Indian River Lagoon clam sightings on the rise after years of over-harvesting

Esther Bower
·2 min read

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - Clams are making a comeback in the Indian River Lagoon.

Years of over-harvesting and poor water quality in the lagoon left a dead zone. Now, signs of new life are catching fishermen off guard.

The clams they find are smaller than someone’s fingernail, but fishermen still notice them at the bottom of their nets.

Re-population efforts have been underway for years. You can see that off U.S. Highway 1, just behind the River Rocks restaurant, where white poles are sticking out of the water. Millions of clams are underwater on those poles in clam beds, but now, the clams are spawning and spreading to new places in the lagoon.

"I started pulling out handfuls of these little baby clams, and I was like, 'Oh, that’s awesome!" said Justin Ross. He's a charter fisherman who recently spotted baby clams.

The fish he caught took a back seat to the clams on his latest fishing trip.

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"This was in the Banana River right in the epicenter of the most polluted water, so it’s awesome to see that," the fisherman exclaimed.

This clam comeback is something Blair Wiggins has been working on since 2019.

"It went from millions of pounds down to zero. It was an absolutely incredible crash," said Wiggins, who’s been the driving force for re-population efforts.

He started the Indian River Clam Restoration project five years ago because the lagoon lost 9 billion clams due to over-harvesting.

His non-profit started putting out clam beds and now uses drones to drop them from the sky.

"As of tomorrow, at our next release, we will have surpassed the 40 million clam mark that we’ve released," he said.

Releasing them is one thing, but seeing the babies means the clams survive and re-populate independently.

"I almost started crying because they’re my babies," he said. "We need more people out there looking in the water for clams."

Ross plans to do just that.

"Oh yeah, every time I pull up the net now, I’m going to be looking for them. No matter where I throw it, I’m going to be looking for little baby clams," said Ross.

The tiny clams benefit the ecosystem greatly. They help filter the water and are a vital food source for fish.

"Everywhere we can get the clams to spread to, it’ll just filter the water that much faster, and more of them will spawn and spread," concluded Ross.

There is still a lot of work to be done to bring clam numbers back up here in the Indian River, but we all play a part in restoration. Taking pictures and reporting sightings lets researchers know where the clams are, where they could be going, and what areas still have low numbers.