Along the beaches of northern California, and the past year has seen a boom in crowds on the hunt for one of the region’s favorite edible delights: clams.
But among the buckets and shovels, clam hunters are increasingly coming armed with a powerful new tool: hand-operated, water-squirting pumps that allow them to take more clams, faster than ever before.
The surge in the use of these hydraulic pumps, which have the capacity to collect a day’s worth of clams in just a few minutes, has raised concerns about their effects on the coastline and clam populations. As a result, the state is cracking down – opting in March to temporarily ban their use until the impact can be fully understood.