Free and Common

Sustainable Commercial Fisheries

Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Farm Raised Shellfish!

Because the laws of nature do not follow the laws of man

Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Farm Raised Shellfish!
 
Research from Oceanus (online magazine that explores oceans) supports why Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Farm Raised Shellfish.The picture below is of a clam bed lease in Wellfleet Harbor, MA that was infected with QPX (quahog parasite unknown), which is an infectious Trojan horse clam disease. Wellfleet Harbor will never be the same after man selected which clams should grow instead of letting nature select the clams through bio-diversity. Since all of the planted clams are essentially the same genetically, disease goes right through the population like wildfire. Note in the linked story. Rhode Island is one of the only clam producing states that has not had an outbreak of QPX. This is because there are virtually no clam farms in Rhode Island due to strong opposition from the "Quahoggers"-the wild clam diggers.
 
Remember-It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature!
 
Farmed clams are easily taken-you just walk down to the beach where they're planted ass-thick and dig them up. The wild stock fisherman must venture out and rely on his art of being tuned in to weather and tide/current predicting, finding the wild clam beds, equipment utilization, and direct competition from other fisherman - which essentially means that your "spot" could get jumped while you're working in it. Clam farms often turn public tide lands into  private property-as in "no tresspassing."  Wild quahoggers work on free and common open access public land, which means there are no staking claims to private property. There is a big difference in the degree of difficulty in producing wild clams compared with farm raised clams.
 
Federally subsidized aquaculture puts natural wild stock fisherman out of business. Our food sources need to be one of our highest priorities. We'll be adding information about sustainable commercial fisheries to this site to keep you informed. Please support sustainable wild fisheries.
  
 
Free and Common is a division of Leading Edge Sciences, LLC 

One Of The Most Imoprtant Issues Facing the U.S.

The destruction of the commercial fisherman in the United States and communities that support them by federal and state fisheries managers should be of the utmost concern to Americans. The importance of this issue cannot be underestimated as our country moves through unprecedented stormy economic times. The system of state and federal management that has been developed over the last 30 years has led to the destruction of the right of communities to meet one of the most vital needs of it's people- real food. Local commercial fisherman supplying food to the inhabitants of communities throughout the world is as old as time. The local commercial fisherman still holds a revered position in many societies-the village is waiting onshore in gratitude for the return of the heroic fisherman, and the live giving healthy food they catch.  In the U.S., and many other industrialized nations, the commercial fisherman has been demonized by regulators and enviromentalists as blight on society. Leading Edge Sciences promotes the awareness of this issue, and defends  the basic constitutional rights of local communities to insure their commercial fisherman have the access to vital fisheries resources their communities need to survive.   Click on link for u-tube clips on this issue.  

 Rhode Island Quahogs

 
Nutritious and delicious!! Hearty (Sushi grade), organic and hand-harvested.
Native American Indians fed their babies clam broth!!
  
 
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch provides valuable information for consumers to make good choices for our nutrition and our oceans.
  
Delicious clam recipes can be found in 
"The New England Clam Shack Cookbook."
 
 
Rhode Island bullrake harvesting quahogs
 
Check out bullraker.com for the latest digs on the Rhode Island quahog fishing industry.