Seaweed Foraging on the Oregon Coast
With the start of the seaweed foraging season just around the corner, I figured it was time to share a little about best practices and seaweed harvesting regulations in Oregon!
Learn about the regulations behind seaweed foraging, best practices, and how I like to go about collecting seaweeds for the year.
Here’s a little nit and gritty on seaweed harvesting in Oregon, before I get into my personal practices.
Most people may not realize that there is even a seaweed foraging season along the Oregon Coast, but there is! Harvesting of live seaweeds is actually not something you can do year round. It’s a bit confusing, if you know that most shellfish foraging is open year round. The season of live seaweed harvesting (meaning seaweed still attached to a substrate) runs from March 1st to June 15th, and is regulated by the Department of State Lands rather than Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, like shellfish harvesting and all other fishing. There is no license required to harvest seaweeds along the coast, but there is a limit set at one-gallon volume container per day and up to three gallons per calendar year.
When harvesting live seaweeds, in Oregon or anywhere, there are a number of things to keep in mind.
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The holdfast (or root-like structure) of a kelp. Harvesters are required to keep these in tact and never remove or disturb.
