Abstract |
Cases of infectious hepatitis traced to clams harvested from Raritan Bay in 1961 stimulated a cooperative State-Public Health Service study of water and shellfish sanitary quality in the bay. The present report describes the distribution of only two species of clams, the soft shell clam, mya arenaria, and the northern quahaug, mercenaria mercenaria. Quantitative features of population sampling permitted statistical evaluation of the clam resource of Raritan Bay. This information, coupled with the bacteriological information being processed for a separate report, describes the clam-water relationship in Raritan Bay. |