European mariners were already familiar with shipworms like T. navalis before 1730.
By Dr. Adam David Sundberg
Associate Professor of Environmental History
Creighton University
In the fall of 1730 following a relatively minor storm, Dutch dike inspectors in the province of Zeeland discovered a little-known “worm” embedded in the wave breakers that buffered coastal dikes. The animal bored into their wooden components, creating a honeycomb of passages that caused them to snap during the storm. The invader was the naval shipworm (Teredo navalis), a cryptogenic marine mollusk, now found worldwide. Subsequent inspections on the island revealed that nearly every dike protected with wood contained shipworms, prompting a crisis of existential proportions. Without these barriers, the earthen bodies of sea dikes would be directly subjected to the erosive force of storm surges. The shipworm infestation “cannot be seen as anything” other than an event of “the utmost consequence, if not total ruin of the island,” acccording to dike inspector Edualdus Reynvaan. News of this novel disaster spread quickly, and by 1731, Dutch inspectors in Holland and the province of Friesland discovered similar infestations along their dikes, sluices, and harbors.
European mariners were already familiar with shipworms like T. navalis before 1730. They had attacked the wooden hulls of trading vessels since antiquity and presented significant challenges for long-term voyages following the expansion of European commerce into the East and West Indies. These new connections likely brought the shipworm to the Netherlands, but their populations did not explode until the fall of 1730 when a series of hot, dry summers likely reduced freshwater river outflow and increased the salinity of the Southern Sea (now called the IJssel Lake) and the Rhine/Meuse Delta region. This combination of temperature and salinity increases created ideal conditions for an outbreak.
Mariners’ experience with the shipworm largely failed to percolate into public awareness, and over much of the 1730s, Dutch water authorities struggled to adapt to this biological invasion. The shipworm also instigated an international response from natural historians, technocrats, religious authorities, and laypeople who proposed remedies for the “shipworm epidemic.” Proposals ranged from coating piles in tar, to cladding them in copper, to the construction of inland “sleeper dikes” in the event that coastal dikes failed.
By the end of the 1730s, many regions of the Netherlands had adopted a version of the proposal for redesigned dikes published by two water authorities from Holland named Pieter Straat and Pieter van der Deure. This design broadened and enlarged dike bodies and removed most wooden elements from the water by layering large stones on the seaward slope. By the end of the 1730s, with the return of wet weather and reduced amounts of available wood, the epidemic subsided.
The shipworm narrative is often treated in Dutch historiography as a technological success story, and without question, Dutch dikes emerged from this disaster stronger than before. The shipworm threat was not eliminated, however. New shipworm infestations emerged sporadically in Holland and across the North Sea in the 1770s and 1850s. These outbreaks once again occurred during droughts, which demonstrated the degree to which environmental and technological conditions mediated outbreaks.
T. Navalis remains an expensive and pervasive threat to wooden structures today. Shipworms continue to threaten wooden harbor infrastructure and ships worldwide and pose a significant challenge for marine archeology. Shipworm infestations will likely increase in significance as climate change and reduced water pollution expand the ecological boundaries of the species.
Further Reading
- Buisman, Jan. Duizend Jaar Weer, Wind, en Water in de Lage Landen d. 5 (2006), 563–604.
- Hollestelle, Leo. “De Zorg Voor De Zeewering Van Walcheren Ten Tijde Van De Republiek,1574-1795.” In Duizend Jaar Walcheren: Over Gelanden, Heren En Geschot, over Binnen- En Buiten Beheer, edited by A. Beenhakker, 103–21. Middelburg: Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genoots, 1996.
- Paalvast, Peter. Ecological Studies in a Man-Made Estaurine Environment, the Port of Rotterdam. Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen (2014).
- Palm, L. C. “De Paalwormepidemie Van 1730.” Spiegel Historiael 15 (1980): 266-72.
- Schilstra, Johannes Jouke. In De Ban Van De Dijk: De Westfriese Omringdijk. Hoorn: West-Friesland, 1982.
- Vvan de Ven, G. P. Man-Made Lowlands: History of Water Management and Land Reclamation in the Netherlands. Utrecht: Matrijs, 2004.
- Wolff, Wim J. “Non-Indigenous Marine and Estuarine Species in the Netherlands,” Zoologische Mededelingen Leiden 79, no. 1 (2005): 1–116, figs 1–31.
Originally published by Arcadia: Explorations in Environmental History, 14 (2015), under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.