GOOEY DUCK....that huge clam that is one the Northwest's unique products. Yes it is a major product similar to our apples and cherries and salmon. Geoduck are harvested much like timber and alot less like salmon.

In 1970 the State of Washington started the commercial geoduck industry. In 2003 the estimated biomass of these tasty mollusks is some 680 million pounds. One quarter of that total or about 170 million pounds is set aside for commercial harvest. Of that available total the Department of Natural Resources allows 4 million pounds per year to be collected and sold.

In 1995 the Rafeedie Decision was handed down in federal court giving the treaty tribes 50% of all shellfish including geoduck. That means the tribes get 2 million pounds of geoduck to harvest each year. The non-treaty harvest is regulated within 6 zones of Puget Sound. The DNR issues quotas which amount to about 60,000lbs per quota. The State holds auctions similar to timber auctions and the high bidder wins the right to harvest the quota. Recently a company called Evergreen, a geoduck processor and seller, won the right to 4 quotas at an agreed bid of $5.10 per pound. That translates to 240,000lbs of geoduck and $1,224,000.00. The state collects that money and also monitors within strict rules the harvest itself.

Geoduck are harvested by divers who carry a high pressure hose which they use to blast away the bottom exposing the big clams. The geoduck are pulled out of the hole where they settle for life. Geoduck do not and cannot burrow into the sand like the rest of the clams. They work their way into the sand at a very early age and stay put until captured or until they die.

The tribes , as with salmon harvesting and crab harvesting, are self regulated and the WDFW and DNR have no say in what they do. The disturbing part to me is that the tribes do not pay one cent to harvest their 2 million pounds of geoduck. The non-treaty salmon commercial fisherman atleast is only out the $600 license and cost of doing business while the geoduck harvester pays anywhere from $1.50 to $6.00 PER POUND to the state. The tribes get there $10,000,000.00 worth of Geoduck for FREE. I would say this is anything but those famous words that justify such inequity: "IN KIND".

Recent cases of poaching and wastage (see Tacoma News Tribune archives for tons of stories) have been pinned on the tribes on top of their unbelieveable advantages in this fishery. The big problem is called high-grading. The major market for these geoduck is China. The market demands only the top grade to get top price. The lesser grades are often discarded over board or more than likely "high-graded" underwater away from all scrutiny. The big problem here besides typical arrogance and taking their good fortune for granted is that geoduck cannot burrow back into the sand. They sit on the bottom and die. The high grading and poaching have been on a huge scale causing some to wonder whether this resource , as many others, is threatened with extinction. Leigh Espy of the DNR told me today that she does not see a supply problem and she said if there is a study claiming so that it is wrong. Nevertheless, this particular advantage for the treaty tribes is worth millions to the tribes and absolutely nothing to the state.

I am working to discover which tribes do the harvesting and where the money trail leads. While in Kingston this past weekend I watched perhaps 15 -20 commercial tribal geoduck boats securing moorage for an opener going on this week from Tuesday through Friday. This is not a racial issue so do not try to suck it into one. This is a natural resources issue and an equality issue. It is an interesting story that needs to be fully exposed.

Grandpa you should first of all realize that the 170 million pounds set aside for harvest is for long term sustained harvest. The remaining 510 million pounds is found in waters closed to commercial harvest due to pollution or is in waters to deep to safely harvest. Thus remaining to replace what is harvested. Annual harvest rates sre between 2 to 3% of that 170 million....which is what has been found to be their annual recruitment rate. Sorry but geoducks are not salmon as the bulk of the population will never be exposed to harvest whereas salmon are always exposed to someones ability to harvest.....hence always susceptiple to extinction. Apples and oranges. BTW there is a ton of scientific studies available on geoducks....take a look at some before assuming to much.

Pardon me goose..but I didn't assume anything. I did point of that 2.7% is the harvest set aside. I never stated or implied that all of the geoduck population was susceptible to harvest. Read carefully before attacking. I also did not say salmon and geoduck are the same. No wonder things get heated around here.

Illegal practices by white fishermen are a HUGE problem as well. One of the biggest offenders ever was a white guy in Tacoma. Didn't have a commercial license at all and yet shipped thousands of tons of the stuff to Canada.

LOL... If I was to ever keep a single butter clam that was too small I'd end up in jail...

Amazing what people can get away with, for a while anyway...

I was talking to one of the bios a year ago and he said that on a single geoduck dive they can bring in over 20 grand worth... not bad for a days work...

Oh so very true Great CornHolio! BUT.........

Those "white" fisherman, as you refer to them, can go to jail for a very long time for that....

I have sat in on numerous tribal fishing infraction trials where the violations were horribly blatant, and as soon as the treaty was waved around the room by the fancy lawyer the charges were dropped, or reverted back to tribal court where nothing was done. Do some reading up on the Yakima tribe SoHappy family for some interesting reading.....

Have had more than one game warden aquaintance of mine say they were going to stop ticketing and enforcing on tribal members (off reservation) because "It's just not worth my time or that taxpayers money"...
Abuse of resources is so wrong, no matter where you are from or who you are....

MC

Before this thread proves a point that no one can be civilized no matter what the subject, I want to further explain a few things:

Indians are definitely not the only ones abusing the geoduck harvest. Sorry if some think I implied that. I'm too busy to quote everything but I did say to go to the Tacoma News Tribune website and search the archives for articles on the geoduck poaching and higrading incidents in the past year or two.

Treaty rights are court ordered and not irreversible but the likelihood is that they will stand. Refeedie has been clarified when it comes to private tide lands but the geoduck harvest stretches common sense in my opinion. Equal access to the resource is fine but why should non-treaty harvesters pay $5 a pound and treaty tribes zero? I know it doesn't matter but I just can't envision tribes in the 1800s diving for geoduck. They do get king crab in Alaska.

I guess there are many species that are harvested now that got no interests just a few years ago. This summer the purse seiners were out off of Westport which started to piss me off until I found out they were netting sardines....That is the food source of choice for all those big salmon this summer. Much more protein than herring...abundant stocks of feed lead to healthy salmon runs but , of course, it lead to commercial harvest too.

I have no beef with harvest of geoduck but it seems like something worth investigating. Is the resource being exploited too much and is there too much abuse? It interests me. As usual only the political side of the story or should I say the controversial sside of the story will get any interest from this group.

I remember reading about the sting operation that caught the Tacoma poacher. However, I don't remember what his sentence was.

Anyone know off the top of their head? Whatever it was, I'm sure it was too light. I don't believe the punishment for poaching is severe enough.

Geoduck are like old growth trees.

It takes a long time to grow a big one
Sure the divers can harvest them and they will grow back, but what replaces them will not be the giants that they're getting now.

I'm sure that grandpa is right in that in the future we will look back on the situation with the geoducks and say why didn't we stop it.

Just like all the clearcutting of the old growth and concomitant destruction of salmon habitat . . .

I just recalled that the Tacoma poacher was deported back to Canada if I remember right. hhhmmm, sounds like a "slap on the wrist" to me. Didn't even have to have a lawyer "waving treaties around" either.

That is too bad. Often time they get hammered (not as hard as they should though).
A big point here too again is a tax issue. Not only do the non-tribals pay for the ability to harvest, but then must pay taxes on what they do harvest and sell. Not so with the tribals. I would like to make a few million and not be taxed and double-taxed on it....... Now before all the comments begin, let me say also that I am a true believer that corproate religeous organizations (churches) should also have to pay taxes on the profits they make.
Just one of my "life is not fair" pet peaves....

MC

Grandpa: I have long shared your concern about the Geoducks. I think this may be another case where we manage by the seat of our pants until a collpase comes, like we did with rockfish and lingcod.

That sting operation we are talking about was at least the second incident I have heard of involving major clam poaching. I wonder if the rescource managers factor that tyrpe of harvest into their guestimates?

Point well taken Aunty...I get misunderstood every day and come across differently than I intend...I am just trying to get information gathered and then share it to hopefully investigate what appears to be a very silent problem. The whole show takes place underwater completely away from public view. I'll see if I can gather a bunch more info before we bash too many innocent people. The DNR has been in discussions just this week that touched on other shellfish like shrimp....rmember how totally screwed the sports shrimpers got this year? Well also note that the rules that stuck it to sporties will be set for 5 more years. I went to the hearings on that one and I am just blwon away by the obvious one sided corruption I saw. Lots of things stink in this state concerning our fish and wildlife and we need to expose them. We also need to cheer out loud when something good happens like the fishing season this year.

More on the giant mollusk soon....

Grandpa my apologies.... my intent was to point out that the use of the word "extinction" in the case of geoducks was misleading. Approximately 75% of the resource will go untouched by harvest as pointed out by my post. Like I said there's a ton of info available....please check it out.

Geoduck depending upon location it takes about 5 to 6 years to grow one of you to a 1 kilogram or 2.2 pound whole live weight.....just exactly what the market wants.

BTW the commercial shellfish industry is currently culturing geoducks in the intertidal and within the next couple years will be producing 2 million pounds annually themselves. The technology already exists to rebuilde harvested wild stocks if needed or produce them as a crop nearly seperate from wild stocks. Knowing that some may raise the issue I would like to point out that recent studies on geoduck genetics has not been able to identify genetically seperate stocks. I could explain why but just don't feel like spending hours on the internet teaching a class on geoduck reproduction and life history.

Grandpa,

You're very right! This is not a racial issue.
Many of the geoducks are being blown out from the seafloor by caucasion men. More specifically, local guys marrying indian women (at least some percentage) and jumping on the Boldt bandwagon. I know, I grew up with several successful geoduckers who have not had to find and work in jobs that the average population must. And hygrading is standard operating procedure. 'When not geoducking, let's decimate the dungeness crabs'. The other eight monthes of the year you can sit around and legally poach big game when bored.

Here is an interesting result for the biggest poacher in the state of geoducks. This is from WDFW. To cap it all off, he is a Squaxin Island Indian. Check out this link also.

http://www.cdnn.info/article/clamscam/clamscam.html

Tacoma - A Pierce County man, arrested and charged in March 2002 on suspicion of leading a sophisticated geoduck theft and crab poaching ring, could face nearly 20 years in prison as part of a plea agreement entered today.

Douglas John Martin Tobin, 50, of Fife, accepted the agreement in connection with a southern Puget Sound geoduck and crab theft operation in which nearly 200,000 pounds of geoduck and about 85,000 pounds of crab were illegally harvested and sold to markets throughout the Pacific Northwest and Asia.

The plea was entered before Pierce County Superior Court Judge Kitty-Ann van Doorninck. Under the agreement, Tobin pleaded guilty to first degree theft of geoduck, 33 violations of trafficking in fish and wildlife related to illegal Dungeness crab harvesting, one count of fishing in a closed area or during a closed season, one count of fish dealing without a license, selling shellfish without a health certificate, failure to fill out harvest records and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Sentencing for Tobin is expected to occur in June. Pierce County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Tom Moore said he will argue for a sentence of 19 years and eight months for Tobin, who has been in the Pierce County Jail since his arrest in March 2002.

Moore said the stiff sentence is warranted because of the sophistication of the poaching operation, the number of people involved, the severity of the crime and Tobin's prior criminal record.

WDFW Enforcement Chief Bruce Bjork said Tobin's theft operation caused significant harm to southern Puget Sound's geoduck and crab resources and posed a public health threat.

"This theft represents not only a tremendous loss of the public's natural resources, but also the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenues," Bjork said. "This wasn't just about clams and crabs - it was also about greed and money, and it clearly jeopardized the public's health."