A fishing council in New Hampshire that regulates scallop harvests from Maine to North Carolina on Wednesday, January 27, reversed a decision it made in November to reduce scallop harvests by nearly 25 percent, a call that pleased New Jersey’s commercial scallopers.
The scallopers said the cuts would have hurt them economically; environmentalists said the ruling set back efforts to conserve other species affected by the scallop dredges.
Scallopers made their case for about six hours Wednesday at a meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council in New Hampshire. The council listened, and then reversed its earlier decision.