2 arrested in massive poaching of oysters and clams on Hood Canal
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
They huddled in the bushes after dark, peering through the grass to spy on shellfish gatherers.
A dozen times over seven months, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers camped at night on the shores of Hood Canal, keeping tabs on men they suspected of poaching hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of oysters.
New book dives into the underworld of giant-clam poaching
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES. Marine patrol officer Paul Golden and Sgt. Dan Brinson, both with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, search an area off Fox Island for signs of poachers trolling the waters of Puget Sound. In his new book, Seattle Times environmental reporter Craig Welch follows the hunt for one of the region's most notorious thieves, exploring the lucrative and dangerous underworld of global wildlife trafficking
. Adapted from "Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature's Bounty" by Craig Welch (William Morrow, $25.99). Release date: April 6.
FROM A DISTANCE, the boat didn't look like much. Aluminum with blue trim. A row of smudged cabin windows. A thick center mast crowded with antennas and loudspeakers. Through moonlight and a light rain, Detective Ed Volz could see a curtain of black rubber cloaking half of the vessel like a tent. He couldn't spot the orange glow of a single cigarette and suspected the captain had ordered his crew not to smoke.Volz and a partner, Bill Jarmon, were crouched behind Douglas firs and madronas on a wooded bluff overlooking Puget Sound. They peered down a sandy cliff, Volz through a spotting scope, Jarmon through binoculars, at the boat idling below. Volz heard little other than the wind and the waves. He knew a pair of aging mattresses stuffed in old sleeping bags had been wrapped around an air compressor, muffling its groan. No one who passed by would suspect it fed oxygen through a hose to a thief below.........
TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES
In a cloud of silt at the bottom of Puget Sound near Port Ludlow, a diver displays a geoduck he has legally harvested by digging the full length of his arm into the muck.
WHITNEY STENSRUD / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Geoducks are born in the water, but then drop to the sea floor where they grow and dig for years until they wind up cocooned in the mud with only their siphons sticking through to the water. They feed by sucking water in through one side of their siphons, filtering out microscopic phytoplankton, then exhaling clean water.
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Fish and wildlife officers patrolling the sound for poachers meet up in the early morning hours under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Detective Ed Volz of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife has worked undercover and employed snitches to pursue the bad guys illegally trolling Puget Sound for its many treasures — from crab and abalone to sea urchins, salmon and geoducks, the world's largest burrowing clams.
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
In the waters off McNeil Island in Puget Sound, air bubbles from a diver break the surface. Divers can legally harvest geoducks only in certain areas at certain times and only under the watchful eye of government monitors.
ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Wildlife agent Bill Jarmon, now retired, teamed with Volz in the hunt for the poacher, tracking his movements mostly at night.
ED VOLZ / SEATTLE TIMES FILE
Doug Tobin's 42-foot Typhoon, photographed by state Fish and Wildlife agents, was used to poach up to $2 million worth of geoduck and crab.
DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES
The waters off McNeil Island are a prime target for poachers seeking geoducks for Asian markets.
WHITNEY STENSRUD / THE SEATTLE TIMES
WHITNEY STENSRUD / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Geoducks are found throughout Puget Sound, but clam rustlers tend to work its southern waters.
BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
At low tide off Seattle's Discovery Park the double-barreled siphon of a geoduck is visible poking through the mud and eel grass.
