| Wild Scallop Stock Enhancement Project
Marsden Brewer, Coordinator
A Fishing Community Based Project
March 2003 update:
As I have said before this project is one of many scallop projects going on along the coast of Maine. This month you will hear from Dana Morse, Extension Agent for Sea Grant / University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Dana has been involved in this project almost from the get go. He has worked with fishermen up and down the coast in a supportive role. I can think of one time in particular a few years back that the project probably would have ended had it not been for Dana's resourcefulness and belief in the ability of the Independent Maine Commercial Fisherman. I wouldn't want to try to count the times that I have said to Dana "Thanks I couldn't have pulled it off without you".
-Marsden
As we're all working our way through the winter, and thinking about the spat bags sitting out there, hopefully with a good set in them, this might be a good time for an update and report on some of the activities that have gone on in the mid-coast area. There have been a couple of successes, some not-so-successful things, and a few really interesting developments. The project continues to be an exciting one because of the collaborations between industry, research, conservation and education, because of the technical advancements and the promise to help the fishery, and also because fishermen are finding new ways of looking at the fishery, and are leading the work.
Settlement
The settlement data from the midcoast area is patchy, but shows some promise. Back in 1999, the only bags set in the midcoast area were in the Damariscotta River, downriver as far as Farnham's Point and as far upriver as Merry Island. When the gear was retrieved in 2000, the bags were pretty well fouled, and had only up to about 30 scallops per bag. However, in the fall of 2000, bags were set in the mouth of the Damariscotta river out to White Island and the Hypocrites, and also down in some locations in Casco Bay. Fishermen in the Casco Bay area reported fairly low catches at that point, but the bags outside the Damariscotta had spat catches in the 1000-2000 range. So, by moving a little further outside, and timing things a little better, the catches went way up.
In the spat collection season of 2001-2002, collection efforts were spread around a little, with assistance from Scott Feindel of DMR, Craig Pendleton and Carla Morin of NAMA, Brian Tarbox of SMTC, and Marsden Brewer of Stonington. That year, S. Bristol fishermen set bags in that same vicinity of the Damariscotta, Cundy's Harbor fishermen set out in the area of Bold Dick Shoal, and Portland area fishermen set in the outer parts of Casco Bay. Gear that was retrieved had low catches, but some gear was lost that was reported to have good catches - the fishermen who were monitoring them reported that the scallops were visible in the bags and that everything looked good. As with any fixed gear, loss is a consideration, but may become less so as time goes on.
One encouraging thing about the catches from Cundy's Harbor was this: even though the bags were set about 4 or 5 weeks late (which was not the fishermen's fault, it was a problem with availability of the bags and Netron), there were still up to 70 scallops or so in several of the bags. Remembering that the first sets in the Damariscotta yielded only 30 per bag or so, and that once the gear was set further outside the catches went into the thousands, there may be some good spat catching spots close by.
A new wrinkle is in play here in the middle of the current spat collecting season. In 2002, a permit was granted to set spat bags in federal waters, courtesy of the Northeast Regional Office of NMFS. As a pilot program, a small number of boats between Portland and east of MDI have been permitted to set gear more than three miles out. With the general thought that there are high numbers of spat in the coastal current, and that they are looking for good habitat to settle, we are looking forward to getting those first looks at the bags.
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Growth Observations and Education
The scallop project has been a great way to combine education with fisheries. Ever since the project began, there have been activities by several groups, to connect people to what's happening on the water. Here at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, grade- and high school students, municipal officials, citizens groups, and local politicians have been part of education programs, and have enjoyed learning about the project, and the partnerships that are happening with industry.
Some growth information has been collected on scallops held at the Center, as well. Measurements taken between early 2000 and late 2002 showed that some scallops grew to a size of about 2.5 inches after the first year, and by Sept of 2002 had grown to nearly 4" in shell height. In early November 2002, approximately 2200 scallops between 2.5 and 3 inches were released back into the Damariscotta River, and are another opportunity to gauge success of reseeding.
Reseeding
Assessing the success of reseeding is an important part of the entire project. We know that we can catch scallop spat in large numbers, but it's more difficult to say how well the scallops fare once they are put back on bottom. To help this along, hundreds of scallops have been tagged (Scott Feindel of DMR detailed this in his report in an earlier edition of Fishermen's Voice). However, the use of glue-on tags is time consuming, and some other method of marking large numbers of scallops would be desirable. Presently, there is some information gathering going on about different types of dyes that could mark the shells of scallops permanently, and could help with determining dispersal from seeding sites, growth, and survival of seeded scallops. Though this is a long way from actually being used on the water, it will be pursued in coming months. | 
Lastly, here's a couple of other developments worthy of note. Erin Fisher, who you may have met through her work with the Stonington Fisheries Alliance and the Island Institute, has entered a PhD program at UMaine, and intends to study the trace elements of scallop shells from different areas. If the technique works, then she may have found a way to locate where a scallop originated from, which would have a lot of bearing on how spawning stock and recruitment could be improved.
Also, the Sea Scallop Working Group, based in Massachusetts, has been a good clearinghouse for information on research relating to scallops. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, and at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have been working on equipment to survey large areas of bottom for scallops, and on a sampling system to detect scallop larvae in the water column. Remembering how the Japanese system relies on larval counts to tell fishermen when to set spat bags, this information could come in help maximize spat bag catches in the future.
In late January, the members of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources of the Maine Legislature were given a 15 minute presentation on the scallop project, its accomplishments, and the working partnerships that have come of it. The presentation met with a good response, and was an excellent way to have a discussion with our legislators over the goals of the project, the industry role and its leadership, and ways to strengthen this fishery. That conversation will hopefully continue.
So all in all, there's a lot happening in scallops these days. The enhancement work will take a little while to get the bugs worked out, but there have been some great successes so far, and good potential down the road. Get involved if you can, and stay tuned. Dana Morse | |
