Is it legal to gather from the beaches and such in WA?

[kevnkev]

In short, you do not need a permit or licence to collect many things on the beach

This was the way miscellaneous invertebrates used to be regulated, up through last year.

This year's fishing regulations pamphlet (pdf in this link) says,

An unclassified marine invertebrate is any shellfish species not defined as shellfish on page 19. Examples include: shore crabs, graceful crabs, sea stars, sand dollars, moon snails, shore snails, marine worms and nudibranchs. NO HARVEST ALLOWED" (Dept. of Fish and Wildlife's emphasis).

Page 19 defines shellfish as

Shellfish Includes Dungeness, red rock, tanner, king, and box crab; razor clams, and all other marine clams existing in a wild state; oysters, geoducks, shrimp, California sea cucumbers, sea urchins, scallops, goose barnacles, cockles, mussels, squid, octopus, and crawfish.

I think the previous thought on unclassified shellfish was that not enough people would be interested in collecting them, so no concerns about overharvesting. Current regulations sound more precautionary - unless someone at the state is explicitly monitoring the stocks of a species they don't want the species to run the risk of overexploitation.

Sounds like if you're willing to limit your local tank to the species called out on the list of shellfish all you need is a state-issued recreational shellfishing permit, but if you want more varied diversity you're out of luck.

Disclaimer - these are regulations for recreational collecting. Different permits exist for research and educational purposes.

 

[Krish]

With regards to the coldwater tanks, here's what Steve Weast had to say about them. Seems they are less trouble to keep than warm tanks. Also, by reading his posts, it seems like the algae issues we deal with with the warmer temperate tanks (hair algae etc) would me minimal do to limited lighting the cold temperate tanks need etc. I guess you may have to contend with different types of low light algae's if anything.

I've been running these tanks for about 10 months now....and if stock were easier to get (most seem to come from southern Australia), I'd think about converting my warm water reef to cold water. The variety and color of animals out there is incredible. The cold water tanks are sooooo much easier to run. Minimal lighting is needed.....no coralline algae..... no fish disease..... no Ca/alk additions needed..... except for the power required for the chiller, much less power is needed ( high light and high flow is not necessary).

There's really nothing much to see right now (but, soon there will be)...like I said, there's only my boxfish, a couple of rocks, some Catalina gobies, and some red Watah anemones...which are all cold water. I'm trying to obtain some strawberry polyp rock to form the reef....but, it's not easy....but, I'm getting closer.

The reason that the cold water systems are easier to run is that there are no calcifying corals to suck up the Ca or the Alk.....the cold water also just slows everything down...like metobolic rates. Cold water fish diseases are extremely rare. Most of the specimens are not photosynthetic....so, strong lighting is not needed.....you just need to keep non photosynthetic specimens that are large enough to target feed with cyclopeze or larger foods. The algae that does grow easily wipes off since it is not calcium based....or, use a little Rowaphos and eliminate that too. I only run one return pump that is split between the two tanks and a Deltec ap600 skimmer that sits in the sump. The only real negative is that after wiping down the front panel, my arm is pretty numb from the cold water.

Here's the thread if you want to read more on it. http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f14/cold-water-aquariums-keeping-them-cold-10241/

 

[DonW]

Im not sure what you mean about that.

It seems like this comes up every year.

You can go to the Washington department of fish & wildlife web site, Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and read about exactly that.

In short, you do not need a permit or licence to collect many things on the beach but you better know what your picking up, and the regulations for that critter. Example, the small crabs under the rock on the beach called shore crabs, limit 10 per day and each person has to hold there own container, no licence required.

Collection in state parts is prohibited.

You can collect anything you have a licence or permit to collect like other species of crab, salmon, rockfish and anything else that is regulated by the department.

There is no longer anything that can be taken from Washington beaches without a permit. It been this way for quite a few years. wa dfw has there rule then the feds have theirs and they are not easy to find or interprit. Have a chat with the folks a pt defiance and they can set you up with the resources to get necessary permits one is state the other is federal and the third is a standard sw fishing license with sw and shelfish.

You cant even take sand, rocks or wood. Feel free to take all the bear cans you want as long as there are no barnacles on the can.

If your in the tacoma area the divers that are down at titlow every week end are happy to collect real reef critters for little or no cost as long as you show permits.

Don

 

[Krish]

I watched a program on televeision the other day with people removing marine life from Washington without permits and getting themselves in trouble. Seemed pretty strict. Here, you can remove fish, sand, critters etc with no issue. It's the corals you can't touch and certain fish like grouper and then crawfish that are protected certain parts of the year. We aren't allowed catch live fish and export them though nor can we import any marine life without a permit. These things they are very strict on here.