Council favors cut in scallop season

Maine’s Scallop Advisory Council (SAC), at a meeting on March 7 in Bangor, took initial votes to significantly reduce both the length of the scallop season and the daily catch limit, as the members wrestled with how to reopen the 10 conservation areas that have been closed to scallop fishing in Maine for three years.
Following much discussion and several motions that failed, the SAC voted in favor of cutting the season from 70 days to 43, to run from December 15 through February 28. A recommendation on which days would be open has not yet been made. The members also favored reducing the statewide daily catch limit of 200 pounds to 135, which is the current catch limit for Cobscook Bay. Finally, they recommended having fishermen opt in to two of the closed areas for the coming season, which would give the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) an idea of how many boats will be fishing in an area before it opens. The SAC members felt that the setting of a meat count or a total allowable catch for the closed areas should be considered at area meetings.
Trisha De Graaf, marine resource management coordinator for the DMR, says the SAC's recommendations will now be discussed at local meetings with members of the industry, and the talks also will focus on reaching a consensus for how to open up the closed areas. The SAC did not yet recommend how many days should be allowed for fishing in the areas that have been closed. Determining how to measure a threshold limit for when the areas should be closed back down also will be discussed.
Another SAC meeting will be held in mid-April in Bangor, with a final vote being taken on recommendations for the upcoming season before the DMR begins the rulemaking process. In addition, De Graaf notes that the Sea Urchin Zone Council will be meeting March 29 in Searsport to make its recommendation for the upcoming urchin season. Since Whiting and Dennys bays have been closed to both urchin and scallop fishing, the DMR plans to develop rules for the two fisheries that will be ready for public hearings in May. The DMR Advisory Council will make the final decision on both the scallop and urchin seasons at a meeting in late July or early August.
De Graaf says that rotational management of closed areas may be discussed at upcoming meetings. The DMR would like to see three-year rotations for opening and closing areas, which the agency believes would help even out the landings and reduce the boom-and-bust cycle of the fishery.
The DMR, the SAC and fishermen have been trying to figure out a plan for reopening the closed areas that would avoid having a derby fishery. According to scallop survey results for some of the closed areas, which were reviewed during the March 7 meeting, the harvestable biomass increased by nearly six times in Whiting Bay from 2009 to 2011 and by eight times in Gouldsboro Bay from 2008 to 2011.
During the meeting, Tom Pottle of Perry presented a hand-out detailing the summary of two recent meetings held by the Cobscook Bay Fishermen's Association to discuss the reopening of the closed areas. The fishermen attending the meetings supported a 42-day scallop season next year, having fishermen opt in to one closed area and allowing one day of fishing per week in closed areas for 14 weeks. All closed areas should open on the same day. When half of the fishing days for the closed areas have gone by, the Cobscook Bay fishermen should meet to review the state of the resource and vote whether to ask the commissioner to shut down the fishery. The fishermen also indicated that they felt there should not be one meat count for the entire state, but rather fishermen in each area should decide on their own meat count. They also felt that there should not be a statewide 50-pound daily catch limit when the closed areas are opened. The fishermen do not support more closures until a plan is set for the area that is proposed for closing, including the length of time for the closure, how the area will be reopened and how the area will be surveyed.
The Cobscook Bay fishermen would like a Cobscook scallop zone established with a zone council, similar to the ones set up for the lobster fishery. They support having fishermen opt in to a Cobscook scallop zone that would run from Bog Brook in Trescott to the Canadian border.