Cockleshells

Today's the day ........................ to commission a study

The common cockle lives on muddy and sandy shores, between the high tide and low tide mark, and is commonly found in estuaries - like those around here that flow into the Solway Firth.  

It is a medium-sized clam-like shell, rounded and domed with radiating ridges. They feed by filtering plankton and other organic matter from the water.  After they die, they wash up on to the shore and form beaches made entirely of empty cockle shells - like the one above at Kippford.  Cockles have been harvested in a small way from the Solway estuaries for many hundreds of years - and in 2014, the Scottish Government commissioned a study to explore whether a management system could deliver a sustainable cockle fishery industry in the Solway Firth.  

It was a comprehensive piece of research covering every aspect of the subject including safety of a cockle-picking workforce, opportunities for local employment and the processing and marketing of the product.  The main obstacle to be overcome was that there weren't enough cockles to make it a viable enterprise.

And, as far as I know, nothing ever came of it ........................