Baby clams ashore on Silver Strand cause excitement, discussion

"[There were] thousands of clams under the shallow surf just below the sand," said Shawn, "never have I seen something like this on our beaches."

Shawn, from Chula Vista has been fishing for 20 years. Lately, although, he's been learning to boogie board with his kids, wife, niece, and godson. On July 1, at around 11:30 a.m., their experience bodysurfing at the Silver Strand State Beach was wee bit more painful if they wiped out in a certain area.

"I scraped my belly there," said his seven-year-old niece. His daughters pointed to what they presumed to be a long (approximately 50 yards across parallel to the shoreline) patch of grass. When they stepped inside the patch, it was hard and "crunchy-like," said one of the kids. The presumed grass was hair strands coming out of the "thousands of clams" partially buried in the sand.

"What I've noticed this season is that on the lower tide these little shells are more exposed," said one of the lifeguards who wanted to remain anonymous. He was working out of the four-story tower in between the second and third parking lot. "It's the first year that I've noticed them significantly — there are quite a bit"

Shawn and his group took video grabbing handfuls of clams, crabs and sand. "Watch this, look at them go." The small sand-crabs attempted to escape but his daughters were quick to catch them, some of the clams extruded their what appeared to be "snail-looking antlers" out of their shells.

"So they were alive? That's cool," said the lifeguard.

M.T., 25, was visiting from American Samoa that weekend. "He (her nephew) found two handfuls and a lot of them were actually closed which surprised me," she said, "because we usually find them broken or half shells." She said they measured about an inch and that had a yellowish-greenish hue.

The beach maintenance guys confirmed that they were baby clams and said that the whales love them.

On July 2 at 4:25 p.m., the lifeguard did not quickly identify the shellfish (after he saw the photos). He double checked inside with his colleague and after said that they were baby clams; and advised not to eat them.

"The tide's pretty high right now so you won't be able to see them," he said, "if you came back like tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., there will probably be a ton [of baby-clams] because I saw a bunch this morning. In the past we never used to see them, so maybe the water got stretched out and now it's more exposed than it used to be."