Suquamish Seafoods faces uncertainty over geoduck

Commercial sales of geoduck have benefited the Suquamish Tribe for many years.

Currently, this market is facing multiple challenges that are limiting the harvesting and sale of this unique and valuable clam.

Suquamish Seafoods reported their most financially successful year in 2018 when the price of geoduck averaged $14.76 a pound and generated $1.783 million in annual net profits. But in 2019, tariff increases between the U.S. and China reduced the market, and harvesters have watched the average price per pound steadily fall over the course of the year.

It is unclear when this situation will improve and, unfortunately, the dropping price is just one of the threats to this once consistent Tribal resource.

The coronavirus outbreak is another challenge, causing China to largely suspend purchases of geoduck and other seafoods until the virus is under control. Without a domestic market strong enough to compensate for the loss, the Suquamish Tribe’s geoduck harvest has shut down, putting all divers out of work until markets improve.

Suquamish Seafoods is not the only enterprise struggling with the changing geoduck industry.

“All geoduck companies have laid-off workers,” Suquamish Seafoods General Manager Tony Forsman explained. “Everyone is being affected, including other Tribes.”

Additionally, when Seafoods does resume geoduck sales, they must contend with a substantial loss of quota.

Some geoduck tracts’ biomass surveys in the Suquamish Usual and Accustomed waters are old, ranging in age from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the data is often inaccurate due to low sampling efforts.

Tribes and State have been updating many of these older surveys throughout Puget Sound in the last 4 years to produce a more accurate and reliable stock assessment from which the annual Total Allowable Catch (TAC) is calculated.

Updating the old surveys with better designs and sampling effort have painted a different picture of the resource’s availability. Many old surveys in Puget Sound were conducted with too few sampling stations (from which the geoduck density is estimated) and these sampling stations were not representative of the variable habitat and depths, resulting in overestimation of the poundage on certain tracts.

The reduction in some geoduck tracts’ estimate will significantly impact the TAC for many Tribes and State harvesters all over Puget Sound. One of these tracts, located in the Suquamish exclusive area near Illahee, saw a difference of 3 million pounds since the 134-acre tract was surveyed in 1997.

This tract was never harvested, and the new survey estimate is still above the pre-fishing density average found on nearby tracts. This survey update translates to an overall 52,000 pound decrease to the Suquamish and state divers’ quota starting in April 2020.

Tribes and state will finalize all old survey updates in 2020; most tracts will be surveyed at least every ten years thereafter to adjust the biomass and measure geoduck recruitment rates after a tract is harvested.

The reduction in quota has raised questions about the resilience of geoduck populations in the face of climate change and ocean acidification. Geoduck may not be recovering as expected, and tracts may be taking longer to reach harvestable size and numbers. More research is needed.

Meanwhile, further surveys are planned this summer, and both the state and Tribes will finalize updated surveys by the end of 2020.

In the meantime, Seafoods is hoping to carry over the 50,000 pounds remaining from the 2019 season, cut short due to market conditions and the coronavirus. That means possibly making up the loss in the 2020 quota.

In order for this to happen, though, all Tribes party to regional management plans, along with the state of Washington, must be in agreement. Representatives from geoduck harvesting Tribes are scheduled to meet at the end of March to discuss this proposal.

For now, Seafoods will continue to maintain their three dive boats and dive equipment. They will renew contracts with divers as they normally would this time of year and be prepared for any resumption of the geoduck program, which typically resumes on April 1.

Tribal divers are now searching for new employment to provide for themselves and their families. The sudden shut down followed by a year of low market orders and a dropping price comes at a bad time for many of them. They are all eager to get back on the water and resume their contributions to the community.

Seafoods markets are often unpredictable, Forsman explains, and divers could be called back to work with little notice.

Since the time of its creation nearly 20 years ago, the dive program has generated profitable income for the divers, the company, and the Suquamish Tribe. The question now is how long tariffs and market conditions last before major cutbacks will need to be considered by Tribal Council.

Growing oysters -- and geoduck

The quota changes have caused Suquamish Seafoods to focus more effort on increasing oyster sales. With a strong domestic market, sales of oysters have increased recently and offer a promising source of revenue for the Tribe.

The current price of oysters yields Seafoods $7.50 per dozen. As an aquaculture farm, there are no quota barriers, so Seafoods may sell as many as the company can grow.

Suquamish Seafoods is hopeful the Tribe will consider farming geoduck along Tribal shorelines to augment the loss in the Tribe’s wild fishery. Farmed geoduck has the potential to yield a higher price and supply divers with opportunities, says Tony Forsman.

“Right now,” Forsman reports, “the goal is for Seafoods to continue to be a productive enterprise of the Suquamish Tribe and to keep day-to-day operations running.” Heather Purser, Suquamish Communications

Heather Purser, Suquamish Communications