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.