Nuns clamming - Toni Frissell LC-F9-04-5709-012-17

Gathering seafood by hand can be as easy as picking shellfish or

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwa ...

up off the

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

, or doing some digging for

clam Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve molluscs. The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the seafloor or riverbeds. Clams have two shel ...

s or crabs, or perhaps diving under the water for abalone or lobsters. Shellfish can be collected from

intertidal The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species ...

areas using a spade or rake and put through a sieve to extract the ones of marketable size. Seafood can be found in

coastal zone The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

s as well as rivers and lakes around the world. Seafood suitable for gathering by hand includes aquatic

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s such as molluscs,

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

s, and

echinoderm An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the s ...

s, as well as aquatic plants. Some molluscs (shellfish) commonly gathered are

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...

s, scallops, and cockles. Some crustaceans commonly gathered are lobster, crayfish, and crabs. A common plant gathered is

. Echinoderms are not gathered as much as mollusks and crustaceans. In Asia, sea cucumbers and sea urchins are gathered. In parts of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, mainly the South,

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive ...

, primarily of the flathead species, are occasionally caught by hand in a technique most often known as noodling. Very little or no specialized equipment is required to gather many of these sea foods. Evidence for shellfish consumption in

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...

should be apparent, since the discarded shell can remain for long periods. In fact, the earliest evidence for shellfish consumption dates to a 300,000-year-old site in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

called Terra Amata. This is a hominid site, as modern ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

'' did not appear until around 50,000 years ago.Szabo The importance of shellfish in prehistoric diet has been the source of much debate in

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

. Sometimes they are referred to as a

famine food A famine food or poverty food is any inexpensive or readily available food used to nourish people in times of hunger and starvation, whether caused by extreme poverty, such as during economic depression or war, or by natural disasters such ...

and their

nutritional value Nutritional value or nutritive value as part of food quality is the measure of a well-balanced ratio of the essential nutrients carbohydrates, fat, protein, minerals, and vitamins in items of food or diet concerning the nutrient requirements of t ...

is played down at the expense of terrestrial or non-marine food sources. Some shellfish are gathered by diving.

Pearl diving Pearl hunting, also known as pearling, is the activity of recovering pearls from wild molluscs, usually oysters or mussels, in the sea or freshwater. Pearl hunting was prevalent in the Persian Gulf region and Japan for thousands of years. On t ...

is the practice of hunting for oysters by

free-diving Freediving, free-diving, free diving, breath-hold diving, or skin diving is a form of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear. Besides the limits of breath- ...

to depths to 30 m. Abalone are also gathered by diving. Divers can also catch lobsters by hand.

References

External links

{{fisheries and fishing Fishing techniques and methods

See also

References

Further reading

External links