Closed Area Scallop Fishery         Area II plot         Photos
The Closed Area concept has rejuvenated the scallop resource along the Atlantic coast. At the simplest level after 20 years years of meat count regulations where we tried to catch all the spawning stock, we now have a greater spawning biomass than has been seen in anyone's memory. We cannot yet prove there is a definitive relationship between the size of that spawning biomass and the number of recruits to the fishery but successive year classes of seed are now on the bottom and thriving over a wide area of the shelf.

Dr. Bill Dupaul and Dave Rudders of Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Gloucester Point, Virginia conducted surveys of the Hudson Canyon and Virginia Beach areas closed in 1997 to allow small scallop to grow. These areas are not off limits to other fishing operations including bottom trawlers, as was the case in the three areas closed to protect groundfish on Georges Bank, in the Great South Channel, and Nantucket Shoals where scallop populations rebounded rapidly after the 1994 closures. Figure 2 and Figure 3 from their report (Dupaul, Rudders, Rago (2000)) plot results of the VIMS/Industry survey. These areas are scheduled to open for limited removals during 2001 under Framework 14. Funding for the survey came from the Scallop Research TAC setaside, 1% from the allowable catch from the reopened New England areas.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods Hole, maintains a website marking progress of the scallop fishery in the reopened Closed Areas (scroll down to the scallop area reports by year). This site tracks both catch and bycatch, since scallop fishing was set to shut down by the NEFMC when the bycatch TAC was reached (remember, these areas were closed to limit removals of groundfish, in this case yellowtail flounder). This bycatch TAC trigger was reached in the 1999 Southeast Part Area II scallop fishery, where the yellowtail flounder bycatch was reached when only about half of the scallop TAC had been caught. One way of looking at it is that approximately $15 million of scallop landings were foregone because of $250,000 worth of flounders. As scallop vessels are allowed only 300 pounds of groundfish bycatch per trip, the discards were many multiples of the retained fish and besides being counted twice if caught twice, many were undoubtedly sacrificed in the process. This process was modified the following year, and will likely be a increasing problem as flounder and fluke stocks rebuild. Bycatch reduction modifications to the gear are being tested with the 1% setaside funding.