Welcome junior rangers to another junior
ranger adventure program.
My name is Kristen I'm a California
state Park Interpreter here for the
Oceano Dunes district and today
we are filming from the shore of Pismo
State Beach,
and our adventure today we're going to
look for Pismo Clams.
What do you say junior rangers would you
like to join us on today's adventure?
Now before we get started in digging for
clams or as i like to say
clamming, we need to have some equipment.
So let's go ahead and go through the
equipment that we're going to have on
today's adventure.
For our clamming adventure junior
rangers we need to bring some equipment.
The first piece of equipment we need to
bring is a clamming fork to help us
dig for clams. The second piece of
equipment is we need a measuring
instrument to measure how big our clams
are.
Our third piece is our fishing license
and our fourth piece of equipment
is our bucket to place our clams in.
Now it is a little wet out here, so I
might want to keep my feet dry.  So i'm
going to put on some boots.
What do you say junior rangers should i
put on these frog boots?
Alright!
Got my boots on, and we have some other
equipment here.
We have our clam bucket so if we find
any clams we're going to put them in
our bucket.
We also need to have our fishing license
so we can go looking for pismo clams,
and we also need a measuring device to
see how big or how small our pismo
clans are, and we're going to talk about
the importance of this device a little
later in our program.
And the last thing that we need for our
equipment junior rangers is
our clamming fork, and this is how we're
going to dig for clams.
What do you say junior rangers do you
want to go on an adventure looking for
pismo clams today?
Alright let's get started.  Now today I
have hidden
several pismo clams here in the sand.
Now the clams that I have hidden are no
longer living and we use these clams to
teach kids and adults all about pismo
clams.  Because
junior rangers if we were to dig in the
sand today and look for living
pismo clams they'd probably be very tiny
about this size,
and we don't want to take them today.
Because we want them to live and grow
in their habitat. So we're going to look
for the pismo clams that I have placed
here in the sand.
So I've got my clamming fork, what do you
say junior ranger should we get to
clamming?
Alright, okay so i'm just gonna take my
clamming fork here and i'm just gonna
dig
uh just above the surface of the sand,
and junior rangers it looks like we have
spotted some pismo clams.
So i'm gonna go ahead and put my
clamming fork down
and junior rangers we have our first
clam.
I'm going to go ahead and place this in
the bucket and it looks like we have two
more clams here.
This one looks like a big one all right.
We have our second pismo clam
and looks like we have one more junior
rangers.
We have our third pismo clam rangers.
Great job on finding these pismo clams
junior rangers.  The pismo clams that we
found here today
vary in different sizes and I want you
to remember this. Because we're going to
talk about these sizes in just a moment,
and you also may notice junior rangers
that we have some vertical and
horizontal lines here on our pismo clam.
And these lines are also important to
the pismo clam as well.
Pismo Clams have various color lines
upon their shell,
ranging from light blue to dark and
light brown.
Lines on the pismo clam shell serve an
important purpose.
Dark more profound lines like the one in
the picture are called growth rings.
A pismo clam will continue to grow for
its entire life and these dark profound
rings are how
scientists and people who study pismo
clams determine
its age. Junior rangers
what exactly is a pismo clam?
Well a pismo clam is a bivalve with two
symmetrical shells that are hinged
together with interlocking teeth, which
you can see in the photo.
The shells of the pismo clam offer
protection to the organism living inside
the shell.
Pismo clams live just under the surface
of the sand,
and this is also where they find food.
Junior rangers you might be wondering
how does a pismo clam survive under the
sandy shore,
and also how does it eat with a hard
shell?
Well the living organism inside the
shell gathers food by
extending what we call a siphon above
the surface of the sand.
This siphon is released during high tide
to capture sea water.
The sea water is full of microscopic
organisms called plankton
which is the main food source for pismo
clams.
Pismo clams are filter feeders meaning
when these clams take in seawater
gills will filter out oxygen and edible
foods such as plankton from the water.
Once the water has been filtered the
ex-current siphon will
release the remaining water out of the
organism.
Wow junior rangers this sure is amazing
and to think a living organism can do
all of this from the inside of a pismo
clam
shell! Junior rangers
the pismo clam was once abundantly found
on the beach,
but today pismo clan population is in
serious decline.
How did this happen? Junior rangers we
just learned about the living organism
inside the pismo clamshell,
but it turns out this living organism is
a tasty meal for a few ocean predators.
Junior rangers can you think of some
ocean predators who might enjoy eating
pismo clams?
If you're thinking sea otters you are
correct! Sea otters are a natural
predator of pismo clams. 
An adult sea otter needs to eat 25
percent of its body weight in a day,
meaning if a sea otter's preferred meal
as pismo clams
that sea otter could eat up to 80 pismo
clams per day.
But how does a sea otter eat a clam?
Well sea otters lay on their back and
place a rock on their chest
and then pound the clam against the rock
to open it up,
and then they enjoy their meal. Another
natural predator to pismo clams are a
sea bird called gulls.
These birds have learned that they can
crack open a clam by dropping the clam
from a height of up to 50 feet in the
air.
The gull flies up in the air and drops
the clam to the ground,
and as the clam hits the ground it
breaks open and the gull flies back down
to enjoy its pismo clam meal.
Animals aren't the only ones who enjoy
eating pismo clams,
humans do too. Human consumption of pismo
clams has a long history dating back
thousands of years. Junior rangers what'd
do you say
should we go on a historic journey to
the past and learn about the history of
the pismo clams?
Alright let's get started on our
historic journey.
Well let's start our journey to the past.
Our first stop on our historic journey
brings us back to about
5,000 years ago when the first people the
Northern Chumash lived amongst the
surrounding area.
Northern Chumash villages were not
located on the beach, but located nearby.
Typically near a fresh water source such
as a lake,
river or stream. The Northern Chumash
would travel from their villages to the
ocean to gather marine resources such as
pismo clams.
The name pismo is a Chumash word meaning
tar named for the tar deposits the
Chumash found
along the shore. Pismo clams provided a
variety of uses for the northern Chumash
as they were
both a source of food and the shells
were used for tools and utensils.
The Northern Chumash pismo clam harvest
was sustainable,
for they only took what they needed. It
wasn't until future human generations
that would over
harvest and affect the pismo clam
population.
Junior ranger should we go on another
historical stop on our journey
all right we're going to go back 121
years to the year
1900. During the 1900s
only a few families owned their own car
so horse and buggy provided a source of
transportation.
During this time pismo clams were
abundantly found at the beach.
There were so many clams found along the
shore that
horse-led wagons would be filled with
large loads of pismo clams to be fed to
animals.
We're going to go on another historical
stop on our journey
to the years 1916 to 1947.
It's during this time clamming became a
popular pastime
and a huge source of food production.
Those who came down to the shore to dig
for pismo clams
were called clammers.  During these years
it's estimated a total of
6.25 million pounds of pismo clams
were harvested from the shore of pismo
beach.
Additionally, during this period in pismo
clam history
American families across the united
states were living during
uncertain economic times called the
Great Depression.
Providing food for one's family often
was challenging during this time and
with an abundance of pismo clams
many families living in the area looked
to the shore of pismo beach
for pismo clams as a source of food for
their families.
Junior rangers the pismo clam harvest of
the 20th century was not sustainable for
the pismo clam.
As a result the population of pismo
clams is way down.
And if you were to come out here on our
beach you more than likely would find
pismo clams of this size,
but we want these pismo clamps to grow
into this size which is about four and a
half
inches.  But how are we going to do that
junior rangers?
Well there's a few measures that are put
in place when you come out here to our
beach to go fishing for clams.
Let's cover these rules now junior
rangers.  You need to have
your fishing license to come out to the
beach and go
clamming and you also need a measuring
device to figure out
how large your clam is and if it's of
legal size.
And we're going to cover those sizes in
just a moment junior rangers. We need to
measure our pismo clams.
Now I have our measuring device here and
I'm going to take our first clam here.
I'm going to place it in our measuring
device,
and this is measuring larger than four
and a half inches.
So this is of legal size.  Now we have
some smaller clamps here
and this clam is definitely not legal
size.
So if we were really out here clamming
what we would do junior rangers is we
would bury our clam
back in the sand so it can hopefully
grow
and get to a much larger size.
Junior rangers thank you for joining us
on another Junior Ranger Program it
sure has been fun learning about pismo
clans with you today.
Now with your help and everyone's help
hopefully the pismo clan population can
flourish
once again. Until next time this is
Kristen and I'm going to conclude the
program by sending it over to my friend
Michelle
and you guys are going to learn the
junior ranger pledge.  Bye-bye.
Hi it's interpreter Michelle here at
Oceano Dunes District
if you're watching this it means you've
completed a virtual junior ranger
program
and it's time for the next step staying
the junior ranger pledge
and being sworn in as an official junior
ranger
so if you're ready stand up
raise your right hand and repeat this
pledge after me
as a junior ranger i promise to
explore our parks and pick up litter
to protect every plant and every critter
to learn important stories of our past
so that these treasure places last i
will keep our parks out of danger
because i am a junior ranger well
congratulations welcome to the team
junior rangers we're glad to have you
you
