Maine Scallop Fishery a Balancing Act

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The DMR said it is willing to take this approach, in part because the fishery is prosecuted in the winter months, and proposing a very limited season could create an incentive to fish in unsafe conditions.

The plan is now to have a 70-day season and a daily possession limit of 15 gallons in Zone 1 and 2, while Zone 3 would have a 10-gallon daily limit with a 50-day season.

For Zone 1 and 2, draggers will start on Dec. 1, 2014, with the last day on April 9, 2015. Divers will start on Dec. 3, 2014, and finish April 15, 2015.

For Zone 3, draggers will start on Dec. 1, and divers will start Dec. 4, 2014, finishing up on April 11, 2015.

In addition, the DMR is proposing to implement a number of targeted closures based on depletion and the presence of spat-producing scallops which include Eastern Casco Bay, Damariscotta River, Ocean Point, Muscle Ridge (open two days per week) and Lower Muscle Ridge as well as to protect municipal mooring fields in Blue Hill Harbor, Western Blue Hill Bay, Bartlett’s Harbor, Seal Harbor, Northeast Harbor and Somes Harbor.

The trigger mechanism will be extended to the entire state scallop fishery, whereby if the DMR receives information indicating that a likelihood of 30-40 percent of the harvestable biomass has been removed, the commissioner will close harvesting for the remainder of the season through emergency action.

The DMR will conduct a survey in mid-January, to see if there’s enough biomass to continue fishing. Fishing this year is characterized by the opening of areas to harvest scallops. The fishery is on a rotational closure plan, and areas that were closed to fishing in previous years will open up this winter. However, it’s impossible to set biomass targets in the newly opened areas, because there’s not enough data and the rotational areas are large.

Possibly, the DMR will set targeted closures in nearshore areas after its survey, still allowing fishermen to fish offshore. The DMR will seek weekly input from fishermen, as part of its monitoring plan.

At a Sept. 4 DMR meeting, about 20 people showed up to comment on the diver and dragger fishing schedules proposed under the compromise scenario. Discussion centered mainly on when to schedule the most fishing days. Fishermen mainly said they wanted to shift some of the fishing days from around the holidays, when the weather was frigid and iffy anyway, and into March and April, to extend opportunities to market the product.

James West of Sorrento, who drags for scallops, proposed adding days for Cobscook Bay in December and in early January, before the two-week survey takes place. West said that, without back-to-back days, fishermen from outside of Cobscook Bay won’t have the incentive to steam that far, which is unfortunate, he said, because it’s a great place for smaller boats to fish because it’s pretty well protected from the weather. At the same time, there won’t be a flood of fishermen traveling to Cobscook, because so much area is opening up this winter along the rest of the coast, so fishermen will be able to work in their home waters.

“I’m pretty sure the survey will show a lot of scallops in Cosbscook Bay,” West said.

One man who fishes in Blue Hill Bay reported that fishermen there said the three-year rotation plan doesn’t work well, because the area open for this coming year is small, and the biomass in the closed areas is still abundant enough to harvest. He said they were asking for a two-year rotation instead.

The DMR’s Trisha De Graaf said DMR Commissioner Pat Keliher is open to the idea of a two-year plan in the future, and is open to tweaking the program in general. But, she said, for this year, he wants to keep the program the way it is, to see how well the areas performed under the existing plan.

The fishery experienced an all-time low in 2005 of 33,000 pounds of landings. Maine fishermen and the DMR began to implement a series of management measures aimed at rebuilding the depleted scallop resource while also providing some economic opportunity in a limited fishery.

According to the DMR:

• Prior to 2005, state waters were managed through a 132-day season, minimum 4-inch shell, and a 10-foot 6-inch drag size limit, with additional area-specific restrictions in several bays.

• In 2008, mandatory harvester and dealer reporting was implemented and a 200-pound maximum daily limit was established.

• In 2009, a moratorium was placed on issuing new licenses and entry to the commercial fishery became limited, the season was reduced to 70 days, the minimum ring size that lined the drags was increased to 4 inches and 13 large conservation closures encompassing 20 percent of Maine’s coastal waters were put in place for three years to allow the resource to rebuild.

• After dozens of meetings with industry over the following three years, the original conservation closures were re-opened on a limited basis in 2012 as Limited Access Areas that have been managed using a soft Total Allowable Catch, which sets a target harvest of 30-40 percent of the estimated harvestable biomass.

• In addition, recognizing the scallop resource and fishery vary coastwide, flexibility was provided for different regions to use various measures to achieve the common goal of rebuilding the resource by establishing three different scallop management Zones. There is no opt-in requirement for zones, which retains the mobile aspect of the fleet.

• That same year, a 10-year Rotational Management Plan was implemented in the Downeast portion of coastal Maine in Zone 2 along with in-season targeted closures to protect areas containing high amounts of sublegal scallops or depleted areas requiring rebuilding.

• There has been a three-fold increase in harvester participation of 131 active licenses in 2008 to 421 active licenses in 2013. Industry members have expressed concern over the instability created by in-season emergency actions such as targeted closures.

“This, in combination with the limited amount of scientific information available to DMR to effectively evaluate the current resource status, led to the DMR recommendation of a 48-day season in Zones 1 and 2 and 32-day season in Zone 3 to the Scallop Advisory Council at their June 30 season-setting meeting,” the DMR said.

At the Sept. 4 meeting, fishermen raised other concerns. One man wanted to know how projects to culture scallops year-round might affect sales in the wild fishery. De Graaf said scallop culture is still in the experimental stage, but suggested it could complement the wild fishery as a Maine product.

“It’s a new question, and it’s potentially a new opportunity,” she said.

Fishermen also discussed gear conflict, with a prevalence of lobster traps where scallop draggers tow, in certain areas. They objected to what essentially becomes “wet storage,” when lobster fishermen leave their gear in the water rather than remove it for the winter.