Canadian scallop fishery ends in a week

Bad weather hampered two Grand Manan fisheries recently, resulting in a delay of the scallop season opening. Frigid cold and high winds around Christmas kept many fishermen from taking up lobster traps in areas that would become scallop fishing areas in January.
Grand Manan Fishermen's Association (GMFA) Program Coordinator Bonnie Morse says, "There was a request from Fundy North Fishermen's Association, and Grand Manan supported it," to delay the season opening from January 9 to 15, to give them time to pick up or move traps and to change their boats over to scallop gear. "The number of people who got out lobstering over Christmas was very small," she says. "It made it worthwhile to delay."
This year's mid‑bay quotas are 129 tonnes for Area 6 - Grand Manan, Campobello, Deer Island and the Wolves islands - and 196 tonnes for Area 1 - the New Brunswick side of the upper bay. The latter is split evenly between summer and winter fisheries. Morse says the Area 6 quota was cut this year by about 20 tonnes because "the science surveys said they weren't seeing any small scallops," meaning the stock that is there now has to last a few years. She notes that scallop fisheries are typically cyclical. "We saw the peak a few years ago, and now we're on the downward side. I think people were anticipating that." However, "there are commercial [sized] scallops out there, but people are not able to catch them" with the low quotas.
The two associations hold frequent conference calls with Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) representatives as they try to keep track of activity. With "hail in" required two hours before the day's end, there are often two more hours of fishing to factor in, so daily catches are estimates. The previous day's report is received at 10 a.m., and it can take a few days for logbooks to be entered. Morse adds that in bad weather it is hard to guess how many boats will get out and what the catches will be. "Nobody wants to close before it's time, but nobody wants to overrun," she says. "We're doing the best we can with the numbers we have."
Area 1 closed on January 19 and Area 6 on January 22. The Grey Zone near Machias Seal Island is open all year with no quota. The summer quota for Area 1 may last a week, but Morse says,
"Once Area 6 is closed, that's it."

Fisherman believes quota system needs to go
“Absolutely ridiculous,” says fisherman Laurence Cook about the season‑limiting quota and the stock assessment. He is the chair of GMFA's lobster committee and a member of the Inshore Scallop Advisory Committee. He disagrees with the purported lack of small scallops, saying the season is "going gangbusters; there are scallops everywhere," and that everyone he has talked to has seen plenty, including small ones. He says the science tows are done in areas randomly selected by a computer with no attention to the type of bottom. There are some types of bottom where scallops simply don't live, and if tows are done there "it brings the average down. It's a ridiculous way to do it."
He argues that while DFO claims scalloping is a "science‑based fishery," they don't have the budget to study the large area adequately; a handful of tows are insufficient, and "it doesn't matter how bright the individuals setting the quota are" if they don't have the budget for good science. "I'm not criticizing the science people," he adds, but they can't do good work with no budget. He relates an inquiry to DFO regarding the number of boats out, and says they couldn't tell him, despite hailing requirements and black boxes. On one day it was "somewhere between 28 and 53. That's quite a bit of difference" for GMFA and scientists trying to estimate daily catches.
He fears for the future of the fishery under the quota system and says, "How many groundfish draggers are on Grand Manan now? How many purse seiners? Zero." The full‑bay scallop fishery also has individual transferable quotas (ITQ), and he says the fleet is a quarter to a third of its former size. "It's a poor management tool, good for company takeovers." With an "unrealistically low" mid‑bay quota, he says people may eventually want ITQs, then it will be easier to sell one's quota than rig up to fish, and "it's bad for coastal communities when companies gobble [quotas] up." He also feels DFO doesn't enforce its own rules about controlling trust agreements, "where the company buys a license and puts it in someone else's name and pretends it's theirs."
Cook wants to see the fishery return to regulation of effort, with a certain amount of gear and time. "The quota needs to go. They inch the quota up and down, and it has nothing to do with biomass. Scallops come and go. It's nothing to do with fishing; it's nature. When production spiked, you fished hard." When it tapered off, "you fished less because it was less rewarding. Now they have a quota and say 'save it for later.'"
He argues that it has been shown that large beds of scallops will die off if left unharvested. After the "tremendous boom" of the past two or three years, the meat quality is starting to drop "but the abundance is there now. The only rational thing to do is harvest if they're going to die anyway."
The system is also frustrating when fishermen may spend thousands of dollars on maintenance and gearing up for a week‑long season. Cook says it took almost as long to rig up the boat as it did to fish. "Scalloping could be supporting the island in a big way," he continues, maintaining that crew, shuckers, ice and other fishery spin-offs contribute more to the island economy per pound than lobstering does. "It's almost obscene for the government to shut this down. It's a waste of a Canadian resource," he believes.
Cook says the price is down from last year, but they won't know exactly what it is until they are paid, which in this case will be after the season is closed.