Fishermen: Despite Gains, De Facto Herding Will Damage Scallop Fishery

by Laurie Schreiber

ELLSWORTH – The status of the scallop resource and controls on fishing effort were a major part of the conversation here, during an open-ended forum hosted by the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) to discuss the past season in the scallop fishery, the upcoming season, scientific monitoring and development of a fishery management plan.

The meeting was one of half a dozen held throughout the state, capped by a meeting of the DMR’s Scallop Advisory Council on June 30.

With regard to the current, three-year rotational management scheme, fishermen agreed it’s a problem.“You herd everybody up, then you close it,” said fisherman James West. “It’s not just 15 or 20 boats. You’ve got 50 or 60 boats. Then you shut it down, and we all jump to this area and then we all jump to that area. That does more damage.”

“You’re pushing us all into these little spots, just like locusts in a garden,” said another fisherman, who once fished out of Southwest Harbor. “Now we travel. I risk my life every day to travel to get to somewhere where I can fish. Boats I’ve never seen before – you’re pushing people into areas where they’ve never fished before. Shorten the season. If you thinking it’s all getting caught, close it. But if you’re pushing everyone into one area, it’s guaranteed to ruin it. You’ve seen what happened in Blue Hill Bay. Only five boats were fishing there. It got in the paper, and you got 50, 60 boats. It was so bad.”

He added, “At my age, I don’t think I should have to travel. I’m about done. I’m getting put out of business. I made good money in Blue Hill Bay, but you closed it. I got to go cut wood again, I guess.”

Another man said he’s seen big offshore boats come into a local area and tow it.

“Drags twice as big. Coming in gangbusters,” he said. “They were doing that for a week.”

DMR resource management coordinator Trish DeGraaf said that, if it’s a matter of poaching, DMR commissioner Pat Keliher takes the matter seriously.

The nature of the fishery has changed, said West.“I never used to go east of Petit Manan,” West said. “But we had a die-off around Duck Island, Baker Island, the whole shoal across there. The only scallops that stayed around was at the Bass Harbor Bar and Greening Island. But the rest, I don’t know if Mother Nature did it, or if we had something to do with it, but they died off, and they’ve never come back across the shoal that I know of.”

He continued, “We used to be able to go look. And maybe not find scallops until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. That was fine, because then we’d get 200, 300 pounds. That fishing is gone. We used to be able to fish in our own back yards year after year. We haven’t been able to do that 15 years anyway. So if you plan on scalloping, you have to travel some. I’ve traveled all the way to Portland. This year, I was up to the Calais River, the furthest east I’ve ever been. I burned 75 gallons of fuel. I don’t mind burning a lot of fuel, if I know I can catch a lot of scallops. But it bothers me burning fuel and not making money.”

DeGraaf had the latest statistics on the fishery as of December 2013. For the 2013 calendar year, 424,547 pounds of scallops were landed, the highest landings since 2000. The value of $5.2 million was the highest since 1998.

Complete season data for 2013/2014 are not available yet. However, landings as of December 2013 were 138,450 pounds, up by 14,407 pounds from December 2012, and up by 90,691 pounds from December 2011.

The value so far, at $14.07 per pound, is $1.9 million, well over the two previous years. Fishing effort was up for calendar year 2013. There were 421 active harvesters. There were 290 additional licenses issued in 2013.

The 421 included 376 draggers, from among the 547 who have a license; and 33 divers, from among the 84 who are licensed. There were an additional 12 “unspecified” harvesters. This compares with 368 active harvesters in 2012. In 2008, there were only 131 active harvesters.

“We’ve had a lot of people come into the fishery,” said DeGraaf. “The access areas contain a lot of rebuilt resource, and a lot of people want to fish those areas.” Also, the price was strong, and many shrimp fishermen came in when that fishery was shut down.

In Cobscook, said Linda Mercer, director of the DMR’s Bureau of Marine and Searun Science, the biggest concern is the dearth of seed.

“We’ve had three good years, and not much coming behind it,” Mercer said.

Overall, said DeGraaf, “We had two good years these past couple of years, but we’re coming up on a couple of slim years as we phase in this rotational plan.”

West said the DMR should change the way surveys are done.

“When I went on the boat, it opened my eyes,” West said. “I was not impressed. A lot of it’s not their fault. It’s the way it’s done. The state picks out these areas and they have to go to those specific areas year after year.”

West said the money going into survey would be better spent on a more hands-on approach, with wardens and scientists going out with fishermen to see exactly what’s caught and what goes overboard.

Mercer said the DMR is trying to improve its knowledge of where to survey every year.