Scallop Fishermen Balance Opportunity and Sustainability
by Laurie Schreiber
Scallop draggers, seen here from Bartlett’s Landing on Mount Desert Island, piled onto Blue Hill Bay late in the 2011-2012 season, resulting in an emergency closure. For the 2012-2013 season, inner Blue Hill Harbor was closed just days after it opened. Laurie Schreiber photo
Scallop fishing in state waters took off with a bang on Dec. 2.
Just days after the 2012-2013 season opened, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) issued an emergency rule to implement a conservation closure in the inner Blue Hill Harbor area, “due to the risk of unusual damage and imminent depletion.”
The rule further read, “Scallop populations throughout the state are at extremely low levels.
The department is concerned that unrestricted harvesting during the remainder of the 2012-2013 fishing season in this area may deplete a severely diminished resource beyond its ability to recover. Continued harvesting may damage sublegal scallops that could be caught during subsequent fishing seasons, as well as reducing the broodstock essential to a recovery.”
Elsewhere in Zone 2, many vessels were attracted to a large bed of scallops in Union River, just outside the Blue Hill Bay limited access area, said DMR Resource Management Coordinator Trisha DeGraaf.
“We counted 57 boats there” on opening day, she said. “They started in a concentrated spot, then spread out.”
During the season’s first week, scallop harvesters largely collected their quota by noon or shortly thereafter. By the second and third week, harvesting had begun to slow.
The Blue Hill inner harbor conservation closure came about when about 30 boats fished out the area in short order. A DMR sea sampler in the area determined that the inner harbor was likely depleted; the DMR closed the area to protect sublegal product for future harvesting, DeGraaf said.
A pilot flight on Dec. 10 counted 53 boats fishing in the area – 32 in Union River and 21 in Western Bay – still quite a large component of the fleet. Some boats also headed east to Gouldsboro and elsewhere.
“We’re keeping eye on things. That’s enomorous pressure,” DeGraaf said.
Fishing began under a new management regime, which established three zones, each with separate plans. The management measures include a combination of “limited access areas” (LAA) and rotational openings similar to crop rotation used in agriculture.
“Rotational management has been proven successful in the U.S. federal scallop fishery and promotes increased landings, resulting in higher economic yield,” said DeGraaf.
For the entire state, what were previously “closed areas” became limited access areas, allowing for limited harvesting one day per week in December and two days per week the rest of the season.
Rotational management was established in Zone 2, which stretches from Penobscot Bay to the Lubec-Campobello International Bridge. A 70-day season will run from Dec. 2 until March 20 and will allow a 185-pound daily limit. Two of three rotational areas in Zone 2 will remain open for the 2012-2013 and 2014-2015 seasons while a third will be closed for rebuilding. LAAs in
Zone 2 will sunset this year as the rotational management plan is phased in.
Zone 1, from Kittery to Penobscot Bay, will utilize LAAs as their management strategy in lieu of rotational management, allowing for limited harvesting one day per week in December and two days per week the rest of the season in those rebuilt areas with a 185-pound daily limit.
Zone 3, in Cobscook Bay, will utilize LAAs and a 90-pound daily limit during a 44 day “split” season with February closed.
As the season progressed through December, fishing in Zone 1’s LAAs proved fruitful, said DeGraaf.
“We’ve got divers and draggers in all three limited access areas, and people are getting the limit,” she said. Some fishermen have found an abundance of large scallops, with a measurement of 10 scallops per pound. Larger scallops are coveted by restaurants and receive a higher boat price.
Abundance in the LAAs has resulted in the reactivation of previously latent licenses, she said. “We found that some vessels that haven’t fished in the last couple of years, but held their licenses, are coming back into fishery,” she said. “They’re attracted to the fact that they can catch their limit with a limited amount of effort. And the price is good –$9 or $10 per pound.”
Scallop fishing in Zone 3 is hampered by stringent limits. In November, DeGraaf said the DMR’s survey this past fall found that 85 percent of product in Cobscook Bay is of sublegal size. Although there’s a lot of product there, much of it will have to be left for when the scallops grow more.
“We’ve had two strong year classes come up, with a third coming up behind it,” she said at the time. “But growth slowed down. Some say it’s the warmer temperature. It may be a reality that we’ll probably have to close that area down early. It’s not ‘if,’ but ‘when.’”
During the scallop season’s opening weeks, most boats in Zone 3 were fishing urchins.
Fishermen who hold both licenses may take both species. But most divers were targeting urchins. Although there are size limits on the fishery, there is no restriction on the amount of harvest, said DeGraaf. Divers were getting 15 to 20-plus totes each, and draggers at least twice that amount. This compares with the cap on scallops of 90 gallons for Zone 3.
Still, the Whiting Bay and Denny’s Bay area was seeing undue pressure. On Dec. 8, the DMR issued an emergency rule to implement a 10-tote limit for that area. In the meantime, after the region was closed to scallop fishing for the 2011-2012 season, the scallops grew to legal size over the summer. The opening of the new scallop season saw 50 boats in the area working East and South bays. Sampling reports and fishermen interviews showed that fishermen were harvesting their scallop limit in just a couple of hours.
The trigger mechanism for closing an area during the season is still being refined, said DeGraaf. “The goal is to remove 30 to 40 percent of the resource, but we don’t have a solid, bullet-proof formula for coming up with a trigger,” she said.
There has been concern from some local stakeholders about the amount of boats in their backyard, she said.
“But the idea is to rebuild the resource in people’s backyard so that people don’t feel they have travel. It’s good right now, especially after the past year, when people didn’t get a good price for lobster. I just don’t know how long it will last.”
For more information, contact DeGraaf at (207) 624-6554 or visit maine.gov/dmr/rm/scallops/scallopmanagement.