Greetings - Ron Smolowitz welcomed the group on behalf of the Sea Scallop Working Group and the Fisheries Survival Fund. The purpose of this reception is to bring forth to the NEFMC Plan Development Team and Scallop Advisory Panel recent advances to improve scalloping.

Bottom Mapping for Better Scalloping - Captain Mike Pittman, Clearwater Fine Foods, Canada, gave a high tech presentation of the latest technology in use on Canadian scallopers since last May in Georgia's Bank and in the German Bank. He described Georges Bank as a series of strips of pea gravel. The Canadian fishing vessels used a backscatter chart and their historic knowledge, to catch 250 tons of scallops in 1999. When the backscatter charts were overlaid with the bottom charts, one could see that there were a number of hits involving strips of bottom pea gravel, but also many failures. In 2000 their company used their Simrard multibeam sonar to prepare charts for fishery to catch 700 tons of scallop with less effort and disturbance to the bottom. While the companies goal is economic, the results are good for ecology. They plan to a survey on the Canadian side of Georgia's Bank this summer. In Canada the new science is for a 10-min tow with an eight-foot rake towed every two miles. He showed a DFO map where Canadians caught their scallops in 1999. They then asked about the area to the west where nobody fished and hired a DFO scientist and towed with a 15-foot rake every mile. One thousand tows were made paid for by the industry. The resulting chart color-codes the amount and the size of scallops from their multibeam scanning. This information tells you where not to fish. When the Canadian fleet goes out, they also waste a lot of time and do not share their failures with others. If they shared information a lot more work could be done. Dr Ginnete Robert (DFO) developed a model based upon the multibeam data.

Captain Pittman then described the equipment used to towin the valleys, etc of Geogias Bank. Different areas, designated asboxes on the chart, gave the number and size of scallops in thoseareas. If the scallops were too small, the box was considered closedto fishing to some later date (a form of rotational fishery). Thismanagement scheme saves considerable time and costs for fuel for thefishery. The Canadian industry has now been involved in over 18,000square kilometers of bottom mapping. It cost $2.2 million Canadian toprovide the data for these charts for northern Georgia's Bank. Thisinformation is invaluable in guiding the boat captains where to tow.

Captain Pittman asked "where are we going ?" They have developed a THREE-D viewer. The wheelhouse of the vessel will be provided with six different views. The views will be: as you stand on the ocean floor looking in, looking out from the vessel 2,4,6, 8 miles, or from the same distances out, but at an angle 10 degrees from the right side, or the left. When the geology is overlaid the vessel can tell where the pea gravel is. The next plans are to survey with a movie camera rather than a rake. This will all be paid for by industry. With backscatter they were able to reduce their effort by 70%.

Spawning Sea Scallops in Captivity - Dr. Richard Karney explained that the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Hatchery is a non profit organization of 6 towns of the island. For the last 20 years we have been doing an inshore stock enhancement for the local fisheries. We are introducing bay scallops, quahogs and oysters. In 1995 we werefunded to explore culture methods for the Atlantic Sea Scallops basedon prior experience with bay scallops. He described the hatchery,which they built that uses phytoplanktom for feed which they grow in agreenhouse. The hatchery also has the capability to heat water tomaintain temperatures. The sea scallops require 70o F (15o C) for thelarval development, so they started early in the season. Theystarted in March and induced spawning by subjecting the animals to atemperature shock. (For bay scallops they used 200 C to 28o C thenreturned to 20o C, since from the literature, sea scallops tolerateonly a few degrees temperature shift, the protocol was modified forthem.) After 20 minutes vast quantities of sea scallop eggs (7million) were collected. Through the larval stage, the survival was1.2 million animals. At the 2-mm stage the survival was 519, 000.Usually the males spawn first, and then you use the change oftemperature later to spawn the females. The water was changed everyother day. The animals were sized and the smaller ones removed forfurther growout. They were fed cultured algae for 40 days. Metamorphosis to development of the foot took almost a week in contrastto bay scallops, in whichthis occurred in 12 - 24 hours, presumablybecause of the lower metabolism at the lower temperature. Aftermetamorphosis they used 10-micron bag filters. The animals were put onthe 160-micron sieve and trickled water through them. At this pointthey were eating the food that was in the natural water. The sieves,which had about 100,000 to 300,000 animals per sieve, were washed onceper day. Survival was much better at 100,000 per sieve. Once perweek the sieves were cleaned from fouling. To remove them from thesieve they air-dried them for 10 minutes. Those that did not releasewhere gently brushed off with water. It is important to regularlysieve them to keep the animals of the same size together. Theyeventually moved the animals (ca 2mm size) out another upwelling systemoffshore into the Japanese style spat bags with 3/4 - 1 mm mesh. Thesurvival at 100 days (about 500,000 from the original 7 million eggs)was quite good. At this point they had troubles when the watertemperature rose to above 22o C, a dangerous level and no one could getpermits to receive these animals. Fortunately the Dutra's from Trurogot permission from their shellfish constable to receive animals onbehalf of the town. To meet regulations against suspension cultures,the animals were placed in pearl nets suspended in cages. They followedthese animals through the next year and a half. The final conclusionwas that you can culture sea scallops. However, at this point theCanadian experience of collecting spat in the wild is much cheaper andmore promising.

The Use of Scallop and Yellowtail DNA to Solve Management Issues - Dr. Alan Kuzirian, Marine Biological laboratory, described themethods used to collect sea scallop larvae. Using a sled containing avideo plankton recorder to identify the presence of sea scallop larvae,water will be drawn up from the sled to collect the larvae. DNAanalysis will be done on these animals to verify the opticalidentification of the sea scallop larvae. They have collected fromvarious areas around Georgia's Bank a series of adult sea scallops.From the mantle of these they have extracted the DNA, carried outfingerprinting which then identified species specific banding patterns. They have also been working or several years to conduct similarexperiments with bay scallops. This method does not kill the scallopand the same animal can later be used for breading purposes Thefingerprint patterns were compared with color morphs in the broodstocks.

Dr. Kuzirian went on to give a simplified description ofthe DNA fingerprinting methods used. The phenol/chloroform extractedDNA is fingerprinted using Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA, orRAPD-PCR technique. Specific primers of short lengths of base pairs(10) are chosen that are then annealed to the strands of DNA during thepolymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. Next, the amplification products are isolated by gel electrophoresis and the individual bandingpatterns are computer analyzed for genetic homogeneity or heterogeneityusing specialized pattern recognition software. The banding patternsare both specific to individuals as well s the population. Thefrequency patterns can be used to identify brood stock.

They now have over 30 samples of sea scallop under investigation forDNA patterns using two different primers. They also have a grant toexplore a bycatch of sea scallops - yellow-tailed flounder to tellwhere they come from. <b>Ron Smolowitz</b> emphasized theimportance of this work in management decisions as well as identifyingthe origin of the scallop spat in Georgia's bank. Why are therescallops on pea gravel and not next to these? Do scallops move whenthey hit the bottom? We need answers to these questions to improve ourefficiency.

Richard Taylor briefly summarized the efforts by the Sea Scallop Recruitment Group led by Scott Gallager of WHOI. They have aNew Bedford vessel, which is being set up with a video planktonrecorder, to do research in Georgia's Bank. The water is centrifuged to concentrate the animals before the microscope views them. The images will be sent back to Woods Hole via the Boatracs Vessel Monitoring System, and will be used to identify areas and verify the timing to set spat collectors.

Preliminary Results of Four Inch Ring Tests - Dr. Bill Dupaul, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, explained that we have gone through a progression of ring size increases for the commercial fishery. With a 3 inch ring the probability of retention of 85mm scallops is 100%. In terms of age it takes in everything about 3+ years old. With the 4 inch ring the probability of retention of 110 -115-mm size is 100%. As they have advanced the ring size, the retained animals are older. With a 4 inch ring we are getting to animals that are about 5+ years old. A number of factors influence the collection of smaller scallops in the drag. From the experience in 1999, using 3.5-inch rings, they were harvesting most of our 40 meat count in the population from our drags in Georges Bank. As they advanced the ring size they improved their meat count and advanced the age of capture. With a 4 inch ring size in 1997 they would have caught less than 5% of the population. He then discussed the experience in Hudson Canyon South where with a 3.5-inch ring they would have harvested most of the crop. As a result of these studies and experience over 5-7 years, one may not, in the closed areas, want to use a ring size which harvests almost everything. With a 4 inch ring this summer hopefully they will leave some of this behind. They also examined the size structures in Area 2. The results will be somewhat different - there will be plenty of scallops - but they will not last as long. In Area 1 we towed a 3.5-inch ring and concluded that they were not getting any benefits from the small scallops. Area 1 had a huge deposit of large (110 - 115 mm) scallops.

The bottom line is that the 4-inch ring outperforms the 3.5-inch ring. However when one consider the scallops that are discarded, the problem will not be solved by ring size. He went on to discuss the findings ofother species found on the deck. They have two more trips planned this year. They need more data before they can impose management changes.

Note: Chris Polloni, USGS, Woods Hole took digital photos from the above presentations. There are four images posted to the www.seascallop.com website with additional information about this methodology. Click on 'SUBSTRATE MAPPING', they are near the top of the page.

5/7/01
H.O.H.