Geoduck Commercial Fishing

Commercial Geoduck Fishing

Geoduck is a gigantic, deep digging, marine bivalve that has a distinguishing physical shape. It more commonly inhabits the Washington Puget Sound region, British Columbia and Alaska. As these gigantic bivalves are found in very few places, they sell at a high price in the market.

Geoduck is, quite savored by the Chinese people. They willingly pay about $40 for a live Geoduck. For this reason, the deep-sea divers that collect these large clams earn a good profit.

Before the discovery of large Geoduck habitations in 1967, these were considered rare and therefore Geoduck fishing was not allowed on commercial scale by the Washington government. Prior to that time, only inter-tidal fishery was allowed for recreational purposes. Later the Washington Fisheries Department discovered large sub-tidal Geoduck beds and lifted the restrictions on Geoduck harvesting.  From that time onward Geoduck harvesting started on a commercial level.

In the next decade the restrictions on harvesting Geoducks were not totally eliminated. The situation was relived with the foundation of British Columbia fishery in 1976. Many divers from Washington were invited to B.C. to train the native divers regarding various techniques to harvest Geoduck.

In the mid of 1967, seven different people were awarded special permission to harvest geoducks from specific locations in the Georgia Strait area. They were given complete rights to the strange shaped clams harvested from the assigned locations. Commercial geoduck fishing is a very valuable business in the North American region.

With the restrictions lifted, the commercial geoduck harvesting started zealously and increased immensely soon afterwards. From the humble amount of 37 metric tons, it multiplied to 3,922 metric tons in 1977. This not only alerted the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) but also the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR). To prevent excessive geoduck harvesting, they put restrictions to the amount of harvesting possible. In 1979, the limit was 2,350 metric tons, which further reduced in 1987 to 2,267 metric tons.

These departments were also concerned about the affect this commercial geoduck harvesting might induce on the habitations of these clams. To resolve this issue they also obligated the divers to use hand-held manually operating water jets.

These manually operated water jets are a harmless and environmentally safe way to collect the geoducks without compromising the integrity of their habitation. The fishing divers use these to disperse the deposits around the geoducks so that they can be easily removed from the seabed.

The average harvested amount of geoduck commercially equals about 4,050 clams in a hectare. The divers go down using a vessel that accommodates only two persons. It is, prohibited to harvest the fish in a water area that is lower than 5.5 meters and is only allowed at a distance of 21 meters from the seashore. This is to ensure the safety of the different sea plants and other aquatic life forms, from any harm that might be, induced by fishing in this region.

Despite all these restrictions, geoduck fishing is a high profit business and therefore, it has expanded a lot commercially.