The Sequim Education Foundation’s May 13 Science Café features Alex Bradbury, the Puget Sound bivalve manager for the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.

Bradbury introduces attendees to the clams and oysters in the area, both the well-known ones (like geoducks and Pacific oysters) and the lesser-known species (like boring clams, varnish clams and Olympia oysters), in his presentation, “Mollusks and Looking Beneath the Surface of the Salish Sea.”

Bradbury will contrast those clams that are native and those that come from elsewhere. He will discuss his work on aging geoducks, surveying public beaches for clams and oysters, setting recreational seasons, co-managing shellfish with native tribes and enhancing beaches with oyster and clam “seed.”

Bradbury provides some tips on where and how to dig clams and harvest oysters and also will discuss some of the challenges facing local bivalves: ocean acidification, global warming, diseases and predators, low dissolved oxygen, illegal harvest, Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning and pollution.

The final Science Café is set for Tuesday, June 4, when Dave Brasher, vice president of High Energy Metals, Inc., presents “Explosive Welding.”

The Science Café is a community service of Sequim Education Foundation. Programs present expert speakers for adult and young adult audiences interested in current developments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Science Café events are held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Paradise Restaurant. Admission is free and food and beverages are available for purchase.

For more information about Sequim Education Foundation, see www.sequimed.org.

Science Café, presented by Sequim Education Foundation

When: 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 13

Where: Paradise Restaurant, 703 N. Sequim Ave., Sequim

Presentation: “Mollusks and Looking Beneath the Surface of the Salish Sea” with Alex Bradbury

Admission: Free