Recreational Shellfishing in Washington: Participation in 2022

With over three-in-five residents living in coastal counties and over two dozen harvestable species, recreational shellfishing is a distinctly Washington pastime. This report provides estimates of the number of participants in recreation shellfishing in Washington in 2022, as well as analysis of their demographics.

Measuring participation in shellfishing in Washington is complicated. While non-tribal recreational shellfishing on public waters requires a license, popular combination licenses permit shellfishing as well as other fishing. Purchasers of these licenses may or may not participate in shellfishing, so relying only on shellfish license sales as an estimate of the number of shellfishing participants would almost certainly result in an underestimate, while assuming all purchasers of combination licenses shellfish would result in an overestimate. Shellfish on private tidelands can be harvested without a license, further complicating participation estimates through licensing data. Recreational shellfish managers conduct surveys to estimate effort and participation, but no consistent estimate exists of overall participation in Washington’s many shellfish fisheries.

In 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) sponsored a revised National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation¹. The Survey measured participation in wildlife-related recreation activities, including shellfishing. Washington was one of fifteen states that acquired a large enough sample of residents required to estimate participation in each activity at a sufficient level of precision. This report presents estimates of shellfishing participation in Washington in 2022 based on these data, and the demographics of participants. These estimates should be considered an addendum to an earlier report on participation, demographics, and spending estimates for fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching in Washington published earlier in 2024². Given the limits of licensing data, the results presented in this report represent the best available estimate of shellfishing participation in Washington.

¹ U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2022 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation

² Van Deynze, B. 2024. Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation in Washington: Participation and Expenditures in 2022. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia, Washington.