As barnacles go, Gooseneck barnacles must be the prettiest. They have long been an expensive delicacy in Spain and Portugal (where they’re known as percebes). Barnacle connoisseurs proclaim them as being sweeter and tenderer than spiny lobster? They were also a favoured dish and traditionally harvested by the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island for hundreds of years.
A short-lived commercial fishery for these barnacles was closed in 2005. However, a court decision last year recognized the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation’s aboriginal right to harvest and sell them, so a new fishery opened in September 2013.
I don’t put out much hope for long-term and sustainable Gooseneck barnacle harvesting. Having dived all over the British Columbia coastline I can state with some certainty, they are not commonly found as they may have been hundreds of years ago. I’m not even going to state where I photographed these Goosenecks barnacles, as I would like them to be for your eyes only.
Thanks to Jett Britnell for the submission of this article.
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