Ducks and Shellfish Sanitation

IT has generally been accepted in the past, that pollution of animal origin was not so potentially dangerous as pollution of human origin. Recent studies of the relation of pathogenic to coliform organisms in duck polluted waters would seem to require some revision in this concept. These studies reported for the first time in this paper, indicate that duck pollution is a very definite public health factor in shellfish sanitation. The chief problems of shellfish sanitation consist of: (1) The determination of safe production areas from which shellfish may be taken for food without danger to the public health; (2) the inspection of plants opening and packing shellfish to assure the continued safety of the product being shipped. The investigations reported herein deal entirely with the first of these problems, and the studies made in one of the many areas of Long Island for the purpose of deciding its potential safety as a source of production. This area is at the easterly end of Long Island and is known as the Peconic River, Reeves Bay, and Flanders Bay area. It consists of some 3,500 acres from which some oysters and large quantities of hard clams are produced annually. The two main factors considered in a study of this type are: (1) the sani-