are then placed in shallow 2 ft x 4 ft plywood trays 

 mounted vertically in banks of 10 trays each. Here 

 the set stays for an additional 8 wk. When the clams 

 are about 10 wk old, they are transferred into run- 

 ning seawater concrete raceways. Under ideal con- 

 ditions, the seed clams measure 1-2 cm at about 14 

 wk of age. When the clams reach 2.5 cm, they are 

 either sold as seed clams or planted by the corpora- 

 tion on nearby mud flats to grow to commercial size. 



THE BAY SCALLOP 



The bay scallop, Aeqiiipecten irrtulians. ranges 

 from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico (Belding, 1910). 

 Principal areas of abundance are the southern New 

 England states; Peconic Bay, Long Island, N.Y.; 

 and the bay and inlets of North Carolina (Gutsell, 

 1931). In 1970, approximately 865,000 pounds, val- 

 ued at 1.2 million dollars (dockside value $1.39/lb) 

 were landed in two states. New York and Mas- 

 sachusetts. The bay scallop rarely lives beyond 2 yr 

 (Merrill and Tubiash, 1970). Because of its short life 

 span and high value, this species is highly suitable for 

 aquaculture. Yet, very little attempt has been made 

 to farm this animal. 



Wells (New York Conservation Commission, 

 1927) was one of the first to artificially rear bay scal- 

 lops. Since then others including Loosanoff and 

 Davis (1963) and Castagna and Duggan (1971) have 

 successfully spawned and reared the larvae to set- 

 ting stages. 



Several programs are presently underway in an 

 attempt to farm the bay scallop. Under a federal aid 

 project PL 88-309, the State of New York has just 

 begun studies on the growth of scallops during the 

 fall, winter, and spring in heated waters. Scallops 

 will be subjected to 40°, 50°, 60°. and 70°F respec- 

 tively, and periodic growth measurements will be 

 taken. It is also planned to place scallops in cages 

 placed in the effluent discharge from LILCO Elec- 

 tric Power Station at Port Jefferson, N.Y. 



Under a Sea Grant Program described earlier by 

 Robert D. Wildman. the Virginia Institute of Marine 

 Science is rearing bay scallops to market size 

 under controlled conditions (Castagna and Duggan, 

 1971). Scallops collected from Virginia and North 

 Carolina were conditioned and spawned in the 

 laboratory. Follow ing setting, juveniles were held in 

 plastic trays in the laboratory for 1 wk. They were 

 then moved to outdoor tanks w ith flowing unfiltered 

 seawater. They remained there until they were 2 mm 

 in width. The scallops were then moved to natural 



waters and placed in plastic coated wooden floats. 

 They reached an average minimum market size of 50 

 mm in 12-13 mo. The authors felt that bay scallops 

 appeared amenable to mariculture. 



FUTURE MOLLUSCAN AQUACULTURE 



IN THE UNITED STATES 



ATLANTIC AND GULF COASTS 



I have briefly described the past and present status 

 of molluscan aquaculture along the Atlantic and 

 Gulf coasts. The next question is where do we go 

 from here? In your country (Japan), we realize that 

 molluscan aquaculture is much further advanced 

 than in the United States. One reason, of course, is 

 your basic protein diet consists of aquatic products 

 while Americans eat basically land-grown products 

 (beef, chicken, etc.). To supply the Japanese people 

 with aquatic products, you utilize your inland waters 

 considerably different than we do in the United 

 States. For example, almost all of your oysters are 

 grown off-bottom in order to produce the maximum 

 numbers per unit of area. You have set priorities on 

 the use of your waters — first, for food production; 

 second, for navigation; and third, for recreation. In 

 the United States the waters are used mainly for 

 navigation and recreation. The use of our waters for 

 food production is on a very low scale. For the 

 United States to develop molluscan aquaculture in 

 the future, we will have to change our philosophy on 

 water usage. This is going to be extremely ditTicult 

 and maybe impossible. 



A second point is that the development of mollus- 

 can aquaculture in the United States will only 

 succeed if it is done profitably. Already many 

 companies which entered aquaculture have lost 

 money and have quickly left the business. For this 

 reason the development of aquaculture in the United 

 States must depend initially on animals that have a 

 high market value. These animals must feed at a low 

 trophic level. Even using high valued crops, it is a 

 question whether or not a profit can be made because 

 of high costs of labor, materials, private leases, etc. 



The third problem is that legal rights to conduct 

 aquaculture must be defined. Only recently laws 

 were passed in Florida which made mariculture legal 

 (Davis and Shields. 1971). Similarily. in Maryland, 

 until this year, it was illegal to grow oysters off- 

 bottom. These are exceptions — in most states along 

 the .Atlantic and Gulf coasts, there are no laws w hich 

 protect the aquaculture investor or even allows 

 aquaculture to be conducted. 



63 



