State takes clam thefts by neck

Associated Press

TACOMA — Poaching geoducks? How shellfish.

That’s the accusation facing four people in Pierce County, arrested Monday after a high-stakes, 18-month investigation into illegal harvesting of the oversized bivalves.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, working with state, federal and local agencies, arrested the four on Monday. Pierce County prosecutors have charged them in Superior Court. They are accused of stealing and trafficking more than 100,000 pounds of geoducks (pronounced gooey-ducks) — a street value of about $1.3 million.

That’s a lot of clams.

Geoducks are big, ugly, and plentiful in the Pacific Northwest. They sell for $10 to $14 per pound, and the state strictly regulates their harvest. Not many people eat them here, but they’re prized in Asia, where prices can reach $100 per pound.

The state fights poachers all the time, officials say, but this poaching ring stands out for its size and sophistication. Officers expect to make more arrests.

"This sends a real message: Don’t do it, you’re going to get caught," said Fish and Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings. "While criminal offenses involving the state’s natural resources may not be as high profile as other crimes, they are very serious."

Prosecutors say the poaching ring also took an equal amount and value of Dungeness crabs. The total illegal catch may top $3 million, according to Fish and Wildlife.

The man officials describe as the ringleader is Douglas John Martin Tobin, 50, a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe. He is charged with leading organized crime, plus multiple charges of trafficking in stolen property and theft. According to the charging papers, the ring stole geoducks from the state and from the Squaxin Island, Nisqually and Puyallup tribes.

Jim Peters, natural resources director for the Squaxin Island Tribe, said Tobin is known as one of the regular tribal fishermen.

"He’s been getting his license, paying his taxes," said Peters, who described Tobin as an "OK guy." He said he thought Tobin had been up fishing around Anacortes, and was surprised to hear of the charges. But he said he and the tribe fully support state officials’ attempts to crack down on poaching. By law, treaty Indian tribes are entitled to half of the fish and shellfish harvest in Puget Sound.

Poaching geoducks isn’t a fast buck. And building a case against suspected geoduck thieves takes work, too.

According to court papers, detectives watched Tobin’s boat, the 42-foot Typhoon, as it left Cornell’s Landing on Fox Island in the evening. It ran without lights, making it difficult to track, but they followed the Typhoon to areas rich with geoducks and saw divers going to and from the boat. Divers harvest geoducks underwater using high-pressure hoses to free the clams from the mud where they make their homes.

After watching cages of clams being unloaded from the Typhoon to a white van registered to Tobin, detectives returned to the geoduck site the next day with biologists from Fish and Wildlife. The biologists videotaped the underwater crime scene, documenting hundreds of fresh holes which they identified as the telltale signs of a geoduck harvest.

Later, detectives traced the geoducks to a processing plant in nearby Fife, leased by Tobin, and to an air cargo terminal at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Court papers said the clams were shipped to California, Canada and overseas.

Three others — Lori Ellen Kern, Xiang "Jack" Li and Jason Lee Biss — were also arrested and charged with trafficking in stolen property, theft and other crimes. A total of 41 charges were filed against the four.

"This was a sophisticated operation," said Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Chief Bruce Bjork.

Sophisticated, but not environmentally friendly. Legal geoduck harvesters must leave at least 40 percent of the clams undisturbed. The poachers, on the other hand, sucked up every clam they could find in an area and then moved on to clean out the next.

"We can’t let this go on, because we want the resource to be there for future generations," Koenings said.

Besides preserving resources, the state wants to protect its pocketbook. The poachers’ $1.3 million represents a hefty chunk of the state’s geoduck business. The state auctions off geoduck harvesting rights, earning $7 million to $10 million yearly for the Department of Natural Resources to spend on public access to and protection of state waterways.