Joke time ...........

Complain all you want. At least some sort of an effort is being made to do something.
The efforts being made in Shinnecock Bay are making a difference and working.
Can you direct us to where the failure you refer to is documented?

Personally, I can prove success as I can fill a bushel of claims anytime I want.

I'm not exactly sure about how clean jamaica, eastchester, or little neck bay's are and can only speculate that there is acorrelation between waste water plants discharging into, runoff, antiquated cesspools, people more concerned about gold course quality grass, and overall disrespect for the environment in general.

I also speculate too many people automatically brush off any attempt to help the environment as a bunch of whacko enviro liberals gone amuck

I think a balanced combination of seeding and sanctuaries is the way to go and not a total waste. Out here, through the efforts of those "crazy whacko's", attempts to replant eel grass is helping.

I welcome ANY attempt to help
If you prefer to complain and mock those that at least want to try to do something positive, that's your choice

Seed growth works IF they are planted where Nature wants them to thrive ... Clam transplants for the sake of a sanctuary has been and will be a WA$TE of time and resources ....
Runoff is killing our waterways and our clams ,,, the solution is somehow to reduce runoff in heavily populated areas ....

Well, I certainly have no intention or desire to go back and forth of our opinions on what works and what doesn't so I'll say that I totally agree with you that runoff is the real issue and finding a long term solution to that is the real answer.

Inspired by the works of Dr. Chris Gobler, a few years back my son did his 6th grade science project on PRB's Permeable reactive barriers. If you are not familiar with them its a method of building an underground tank type of thing that works as filter to grab nitrogen out of water before it dumps out into the bay. But i guess like everything else people dismiss it because of the cost associated with installing them. They are proven effective if utilized properly. His project actually took 1st place👍

So now that we got the nonsense out of the way 🙂😛.....

I'm not understanding the position that clam sanctuaries do not work.
I don't think anybody out there thinks that the sanctuaries alone are going to filter all the water and magically make everything better.
Aren't the clams placed in those areas reproducing?? Do clams of stop reproducing after a certain size and or age??
If they are still reproducing why wouldn't those new seeds drift to other areas of the bay and settle somewhere else.

I would think to call them a total failure is a bit overstated and even if it helps a little bit its worth the effort.

OK, the scientist me had me combing through the invertebrate physiology literature regarding Mercenaria mercenaria reproduction based on some of the statements here and I've yet to find out that as the clams age, their reproductive abilities begin to diminish or are exhausted. I'd love a citation for this please Scupper.

What I did find, in a very-well written and exhaustive 2008 study by URI scientists Marroquin-Mora and Rice, Gonadal Cycle of Northern Quahogs, Mercenaria mercenaria (Linne, 1758), from Fished and Nonfished Subpopulations in Narragansett Bay, Clam Study

Here's a quote from the introduction that tends to agree with some of the statements here regarding transplanting chowder-sized clams.

Opponents to this view of unexploited ‘‘old growth’’ stocks serving as de facto spawner sanctuaries state hypothetically that populations of large suspension feeders may be regulated by intraspecific competition for food or space. High population densities may deplete the food resources of overlying water masses to a critical level resulting in depressed rates of growth, survivorship, and/or fecundity (Peterson & Andre 1980, Maurer 1983) or inhibiting recruitment if adults filter settling larvae from the water column, as suggested by Woodin (1976).

The study goes on to explore this, and demonstrate in poor water quality areas, or areas of high populations, there is reduced spawning, due to hypoxia and competition for available nutrients. When they compare reproduction in closed versus open harvest areas they do not mention anything about age/size related changes in fecundity...

Because population densities are also higher in the closed areas than in the open areas, it is very likely that the density factor results in the significant differences in condition index observed between the conditional areas and closed sites. Decreased fecundity of quahogs in closed sites caused by water quality conditions in those areas that are prone to hypoxia may be exacerbated by quahog population density as well.

So unless someone can point me to a specific reference regarding decreased fecundity/infertility of chowder Mercenaria mercinaria, we can give that line of reasoning a rest.

30 cents dock price for chowders???
Hmmmm..... I have not been commercially clamming for many many years but we were lucky to get 20 cents for top necks the week before 4th of July or Labor Day, we got treading in bellport, the narrows, or wherever. We were lucky if we got $10 for a bag of chowders.

Kassner and Malouf (1982) who found that transplanted clams spawned at the same time as native clams. Transplanting of adult hard clams to establish spawner sanctuaries has been conducted by the Town of Islip since 1974 within a relatively large portion of GSB (~ 20,000 acres). Annual monitoring of the population indicates that these efforts have met with little or no success (with success defined as recruitment into the harvestable fishery) (S. Buckner, pers. comm.). In addition, the Bluepoints Co. conducted 13 years of spawner transplants from 1973 to 1985, planting over 12 million clams, with little or no success (C. Strong, pers. comm.). Extensive dye study data were used in both programs to site spawner sanctuaries and identify likely areas of larval setting.

Exactly, nothing above says larger clams are less fecund, just that expecting them to replenish an area doesn't seem to work. Got to be exact in your claims.

Another point, the only real scientific paper above is the 82 Kassner and Malouf, the rest are personal communications. The advantage there is a communication can make any claim it wants, without having verified data to back that up. What you have here is by virtue of the dye data, there should be larval settling. Observations of no big bump up in clam population was speculated that larval settling didn't seem to work, but not proven. To extrapolate that to older clams don't reproduce well is pure speculation, unless you actually demonstrate that.

Yeah, I'm a PITA on science. As one, I'm charged with maintaining its purity, especially these days when there's so much fake science pawned off as real science and visa versa...

The thread was all about establishing a 'clam sanctuary " from chowders .... Its been established that these efforts do not produce additional amount of seed due to the 'protected ' clams breeding ......
This thread has gotten into minutia whether a 'old' clam can make babies as strong as a younger clam ..... Towns all across Long Island have gotten away from the sanctuary model and have established hatcheries ... Why ... Experience has taught them that hatcheries produce results , old chowder beds just fade away ....
I don't have the time or the inclination , but I would wager that the commercial hatcheries up and down the coast do NOT use old chowders as breeders , they want stronger specimens .... I haven't yet seen clam viagra advertised while on the water ........
Hatchery phone numbers are on google , give them a call if you want .....
Not one commercial clam farm uses transplants / sanctuaries as their method to grow stock ... AND I'd bet that they DO NOT seek out old chowders from LI Sound for brood stock in their hatchery ......
Your ' Science ' is fine and dandy ,,,, Decades of direct family involvement in hatching and growing clams/ oysters has taught us a few things never learned 'in school ' .........
I said it before and will say it again ,, NY State spending $10 million on old chowder transplants is a colossal waste of resources ....
That $10 million could purchase a WHOPPING 285 MILLION ready for planting SEED CLAMS ...... with a market value at maturity of $74 million 'if ' they all survived ....................