Brian Beal, director of research at the Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research & Education – and a familiar presence in Freeport – hosts a clam field research presentation at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at the Freeport Community Library.

The session takes place one night prior to a meeting of the Freeport Ordinance Committee, which has been working with the town’s Shellfish Conservation Commission on various forms of an aquaculture proposal. That meeting, at the Town Hall, begins at 5:30 p.m.

Beal, a University of Maine at Machias marine biology professor, will facilitate the meeting on a topic with which he’s most familiar. Beal has conducted field experiments on soft shell clams and their predators on Freeport’s mud flats for three summers now. While Beal works with scientific data, he has his detractors, because he’s a proponent of clam farming, based on lower clam yields and the warming of ocean waters, which have brought on predators such as green crabs. Beal’s detractors say that landings are up this year, and that the warmer ocean conditions are cyclical in nature.

Beal said that he set up the library presentation to provide the general public with an idea of the scope of his activities and research in Freeport, and how it all relates to shellfish management.

Beal will refer to Department of Marine Resource statics showing that from 2009-2012, the 53 licensed commercial clammers in Freeport harvested more soft-shell clams from the 36 miles of shoreline in Freeport than any other coastal town in Maine. Dockside revenues from Freeport clamming alone in 2012 were nearly one-tenth of the value from the entire state of Maine. Since 2012, however, Freeport clam harvesters have seen a nearly 70 percent decline in landings and a nearly 50 percent decline in revenues.

“This decline in landings represents significant losses in the standing stock of clams from flats in that community, which coincides with a gloomy forecast that state of Maine shellfish managers and clammers predicted would occur in 2013,” Beal said. “The relatively sudden problem has occurred at the same time that dramatic increases in population numbers of the invasive European green crab have been observed. The increase in green crab numbers is associated with recent ocean warming trends, but also could be a result of adaptation to cold-temperature regimes in the northern part of its range.”

Some clam harvesters have said that the effects of predatory green crabs have made clam farming necessary, while other clammers complain that the program would take away public accesss to the flats. They also say landings have risen greatly this year, and point to a price they are receiving of $60 a bushel less than they earned last year.

One aquaculture proposal would limit permitted sites to a 35-acre parcel, out of roughly 880 acres of inter-tidal flats that are available for clamming.

Changes in the ecosystem come and go, some say.

“Changes in the ecosystem in Maine and elswhere are not cyclical, they’re random,” Beal said. “I don’t think that anyone can predict how many clams will be around. I’ve been looking for cycles for 30 years, and they’re not there.”

Sara Randall, a natural resources consultant who has worked with Beal, agreed.

“Cyclical?” Randall asked. “I think that’s part of wishful thinking. The trend is warmer and warmer, and that increases predation on the soft shell clam. We’re not looking for ways to adapt. Are we just going to look the other way, or are we going to adapt?”

Randall said she hopes for a good dialogue at Wednesday night’s meeting. Town Council and Shellfish Conservation Commission members have been invited, she said.

A chart of clam landings in Freeport.