A parasite has struck the shellfish farms of this Cape Cod town, according to the Cape Cod Times.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clams will have to be destroyed as part of an effort to save Wellfleet's multimillion dollar quahog aquaculture industry from the tiny parasite known as QPX, or quahog parasite unknown.
The parasite destroys the meat of the clams, but is not harmful to humans or other species of shellfish raised in the same area, such as oysters and soft-shelled clams.
State Department of Marine Fisheries chief shellfish biologist Michael Hickey said the outbreak of the parasite is confined to Egg Island in Wellfleet Harbor. Three of the 25 aquaculture operations there have been infected.
In 1995, the Provincetown, MA aquaculture operations were decimated by the bug. It was found in wild quahogs in Chatham in 1992 and in Duxbury in 1995, and in farmed clams in Orleans and Barnstable in 2001.
With this bug spreading in Cape Cod waters, I put the call out there for a task force to be set up by local state governments, aquaculture companies, and individual farmers to research, study and publicize the problems to the public. It’s better to head this off now before it gets worst.
