The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has mapped shellfish populations in Coos Bay and will be sharing results of an extensive survey in a public meeting in Charleston this month.

The meeting will start at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 18, at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology’s auditorium, the Boat House, located at 63466 Boat Basin Road.

For the past 18 months, a team of ODFW biologists has documented where gaper clams, butter clams, cockles, and native littleneck clams are found in the bay, their abundance and the habitat for each species, a press release said.

The team compared its findings to shellfish surveys from the 1970s. Information gathered by this project will be used by recreational fishers, biologists and estuary managers to provide a baseline for monitoring changes in the estuary.

The survey found that butter clams and gaper clams are the most populous species in the lower Coos Bay estuary and have increased in numbers since the 1970s. However, it found low numbers of cockles and native littlenecks, compared to the survey done in the 1970s.

Funding for this project came from the 2007 Oregon State Legislature through the use of recreational shellfish license dollars. ODFW selected Coos Bay because of several large development projects proposed for the area. The legislature is considering making the survey project a permanent part of ODFW, which would enable the agency to conduct similar surveys in other Oregon estuaries in future years.

For more information about the meeting or the work of the shellfish assessment project, contact Stacy Galleher at the ODFW Charleston field office, 888-2614.