This one is close to my heart, at low tide you can see the huge squirt-jets of water out of the sand where they live in their burrows.
They belong in their burrows and they are happy there.
You only get to see them alive if you are a Razor Clam “harvester”. I say “harvester” which makes it sound nice, but I see it as “pillaging”. They go down at low tide and take the animals out of the sand to sell and/or eat.
I question the wisdom of taking these filter-feeding shellfish out of our Sewage Sand Beach.
I counted 12 harvesters in this photo below.
I’ve seen the razor clams alive in their buckets and I’ve explained that I think it is a bad idea to take these animals.
There are two reasons for this:
- They are probably not fit for human consumption due to the proximity of the sewage plant.
- They provide a vital service into cleaning the water and making the beach as healthy as possible.
As filter feeders they provide an essential service as I’m pretty sure they help clean the water as they remove various particles
See: Razor Shell on Wikipedia & Filter Feeder on Wikipedia.
