© 2016 Lindsay Cope

Giant Clam Restocking

I recently had the good fortune to participate in a unique project with DENR to restock Giant Clams, locally called Taklobo, in the marine protected area of Barangay Santa Ana.

Similar to coral reefs, giant clams support xoozanthellae algae, which produce sugars for the Giant Clam host. Giant Clams prefer shallow reef areas and can live as long as 100 years and grow as long as four feet.  I was fortunate to swim with a few large clams a month ago in Anilao, the enormity of these species is truly awesome.

The giant clams we were planting were juveniles, about a foot long each.  Before placing them on the reef, we first acclimatized the clams which had travelled a long way from Pangasinan to Batangas.  After an hour submerged in sea water, we gathered our dive gear and climbed onto the boat.

12919847_10205937690428788_3503287101079060424_n 11214732_10205937692468839_6153452665678015759_n

Once we located a suitable spot for the clams, we descended and awaited for the clams to be lowered in crates. We had 20 pieces and it took about an hour total to distribute the giant clams.

Let me tell you something about planting giant clams.  It is not as easy as it looks.  Our team moved very quickly underwater to place the clams in their new homes. After demonstrating with a few clams, Jessie checked to see if I was okay to try it out.  I gave him the “okay” signal and he handed me a clam, one of the smaller specimens of the day.  As soon as he placed it in my hands, I could not move.  In fact, I sort of face planted into the coral rubble below me.  It hadn’t occurred to me how much the clam would change my buoyancy.  I clumsily swam with it before placing it securely adjacent to the reef. After that, I put myself on crate and clean up duty.

There were a few flaws in the way the project was implemented, and I tried my best to mitigate them for the duration of the planting.  First, the clams had been transported in packaging.  Each was wrapped in a sac to retain moisture and then packaged in not one, but two plastic bags.  We kept the clams in the bags to acclimatize them, pouring water over them.  However, the participants in the bangka were dropping the clams in the crates still encased in plastic.  Once the clam was removed from the plastic, the diver placing the clam moved quickly to mitigate distress, and left the bag to float freely in the water column. I swam quickly to collect the bags, trying to return them to the surface as the crates were pulled back up.  As I held onto the plastic bags, I struggled with buoyancy because they had trapped so much air.

12932646_10205937690308785_4650144755515695367_n

It would make sense to me to remove the clam from the plastic and send just the clam down to the divers, but sometimes that doesn’t really make sense.  We tried to collect all the bags, but I’m sad to report that its likely we lost one or two in our efforts. On our next planting activity with DENR, apparently we have 50 more pieces to deliver to the MPA, we will instruct the boatmen to keep the plastic on the boat.

The other dilemma I had with the project is the disregard of the DENR divers for the ecosystem they were operating in.  They didn’t show regard for the reef, causing damage with their fins.  Also, the descending crates crashed into the reef. Jessie and I would watch for the crates and guide them to the sand or rubble areas of the substrate but the other divers did not follow our cue. There is a lot of room for improvement in implementation, and one take away is that it never hurts to remind people of basic diving etiquette and to provide thorough dive/implementation plan for these kinds of projects. 12963464_10205937690348786_8881405649489654576_n12987171_10205937692388837_8510962038205652396_n

It was a successful day despite the flaws in implementation.  We look forward to continuing the Giant Clam seeding with DENR and hope that we can improve the operations and ensure that conservation efforts are not thwarted by simple fixable operational discrepancies.

28 Comments

  1. MiaWright
    Posted May 11, 2020 at 1:11 pm | #

    Hello! I love this photos, your adventure was amazing, thank you for sharing! I’m also want to show you intersting web that make me happy https://www.playvipslotoreviews.com and wirh monet, just try to play this wonderful games

  2. Alexia
    Posted April 24, 2020 at 9:29 am | #

    I think it is a computer station and it is very useful and knowledgeable. therefore, I would like to thank you for your efforts in writing this article. lire l’article

  3. Alex Swang
    Posted April 4, 2020 at 12:47 am | #

    I noticed lately that my focus and productivity increases when I listen to classical music. Alex

  4. Vanessa
    Posted April 3, 2020 at 12:50 am | #

    Humans are unique beings, they all have different point of view and they all think that their point of view is the correct one and everyone else is wrong. 2048 cupcakes

  5. Uosrmme
    Posted March 27, 2020 at 11:15 am | #

    Thank you my friend this is great article and fantastic information! العاب بنات

  6. Lauren Thomas
    Posted February 4, 2020 at 12:49 pm | #

    Among them appears to be out of this history, but when the time for the Philippines. He. And he was brought to the Filipino is the same be the woman is very beautiful for four years to be his wife. Graphic Design Company

  7. Kayleigh Barton
    Posted January 27, 2020 at 12:23 pm | #

    After the this blog, but I think I have a fixed time. I’ll go. I got to take him to action, with a childrensbookillustrators.net it took almost four years.

  8. hery
    Posted December 29, 2019 at 8:26 pm | #

    The article you have shared here very awesome. I really like and appreciated your work
    grindcraft 2

  9. anna
    Posted December 29, 2019 at 8:24 pm | #

    I agree with your opinion .Hope you share many things.
    http://bit.ly/2AGII3N

  10. Geek Tech Support
    Posted November 28, 2019 at 11:31 pm | #

    This is such a mindblowing and amazing post. I feel glad to read this post this is such a wonderful post. Thank you so much for sharing this post with us. I am waiting for new updates.

    visit our website for any help:- http://geektechsupports.co.uk

  11. Nomad
    Posted October 23, 2019 at 10:20 pm | #

    Very interesting, but isn’t it more dangerous compared to day diving? Gun gamer

  12. run 3
    Posted October 1, 2019 at 12:29 am | #

    Your topic is very great and useful for us…thank you
    run 3

  13. Becky Spencer
    Posted August 27, 2019 at 12:35 am | #

    Mass Texting is now one of the most common marketing practices business use to engage and attract customers with their latest product or service offers. The larger your audience and higher the quality of your campaign, the greater the chances of responses and success.

  14. cool kiu00
    Posted August 4, 2019 at 6:40 pm | #

    congratulations! it’s a wonderful thing! I agree with your opinion!
    cool maps

  15. Robert B
    Posted June 19, 2019 at 1:25 pm | #

    This is a great motivating content.I am fairly much happy with your great work.You put really very information. avian vet in queens ny

  16. Ludo Game
    Posted June 3, 2019 at 1:40 am | #

    Ludo game is a type of board game that can be played by 2 or 4 players. In this game, the players have to race their 4 tokens from the starting to the finishing point according to the roll of the dice.

  17. phamyen
    Posted May 22, 2019 at 8:10 pm | #

    I would like to thank you for your nicely written post

    fun games

  18. robert
    Posted May 21, 2019 at 10:54 am | #

    Nice sharing amazing one keep sharing more thanks for all lovely one bird vet staten island ny

  19. Acacia hary
    Posted April 26, 2019 at 9:29 pm | #

    Very good article, with lots of interesting information about exploring the seabed.
    fnaf world

  20. Hantasi
    Posted April 5, 2019 at 8:53 pm | #

    Thanks for the information you shared.
    strike force kitty 2

  21. Brian
    Posted April 4, 2019 at 4:34 am | #

    Underwater refers to the region below the surface of water where the water exists in a swimming pool or a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river. robot unicorn attack

  22. Valer Ivnanov
    Posted March 27, 2019 at 8:51 am | #

    oh, I can’t believe it was right. that’s a really interesting, I remember shawket alkhayal was talking about it but i never belive it.

  23. tovar linda
    Posted October 31, 2018 at 11:42 pm | #

    tik tok video Very good, I think I found the knowledge I needed. I will see and refer some information in your post. thank you for sharing with us

  24. barbaramorgan
    Posted October 23, 2018 at 2:15 am | #

    I even met two of our local divers! They have been out of the water for a long time, but we will get them on a couple refresher dives before the start of the project! happy wheels 2 online

  25. Stevemark1
    Posted October 22, 2018 at 12:17 am | #

    I appear to get beat each time I post regarding the Philippines but here. I am going. I actually have been married to my Filipino married woman for pretty much four years.

    regards:

  26. John Sharp
    Posted October 19, 2018 at 11:32 pm | #

    You people are lucky and i enjoy your blogs and the images that you put up for your journey underneath the sea.https://www.essaychamp.co.uk/

  27. Himanshu
    Posted October 18, 2018 at 3:14 am | #

    Spider solitaire is one of the most popular card game popular worldwide just visit here and play spider solitaire game online without any pay and app installation.

  28. Jack Flynn
    Posted October 3, 2017 at 12:28 pm | #

    Its so good to see you guys progress so much with the projects. I love this blog so much keep us updated with new stuffs thank you so much.

    ShowBox

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Sites DOT MIISThe Middlebury Institute site network.