And the market keeps growing, fueled by Asia's economic recovery. Gibbons worries about geoduck growers glutting the market, just as salmon growers have, but Asian buyers tell him not worry. We have one city, Shanghai, that can eat that much. As they say in Shanghai, keep clam. But up in Vancouver, BC, another start-up geoduck grower looks forward to a day when geoduck will be cheap and commonplace, a basic protein source.
Caution makes sense, because geoducks grow back so slowly.
The idea is that enough of the bigger babies will dig into the sand fast enough to escape crabs and other geoduck nemeses. We're the pilot fish for a new industry. The Chinese grow billions of pounds of oysters and manila clams each year. And such plankton, nourished by fertilizer and septic run-off, is smothering South Puget Sound and countless other water bodies facing rapid development. Indeed, filter-feeding bivalves are net consumers rather than producers of pollution.