April 19, 2022 — Every year on Earth Day, NOAA Fisheries joins citizens and organizations around the world in celebrating our planet and recognizing the need to care for our natural resources. After all, stewardship of our nation’s marine natural resources is the crux of NOAA Fisheries’ mission. It drives the work we do on Earth Day and every other day, too.
Thanks to world-class science, adaptive and accountable management, and dedicated enforcement, the United States is a global leader in responsible fisheries management. Regular assessments reveal that 80 percent of the stocks we monitor are at healthy sizes, and 92 percent are not subject to overfishing.
It’s taken decades of effort and investment, and the cooperation and sacrifice of U.S. fishermen, to get here. While our work continues, for Earth Day we can share some Earth optimism as we look back on our progress toward sustainable U.S. fisheries.
The Story of Sea Scallops
The first stock officially declared “rebuilt” following this new process was the Atlantic sea scallop. Decades of intense dredging in the scallop beds of Georges Bank and, later, the mid-Atlantic Bight had pushed sea scallop populations to the brink. In the early 1990s, managers shifted gears, implementing gear regulations, fishing effort restrictions, and limits on the number of participants.
In 1994, three large areas in Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals were closed to fishing to protect similarly stressed groundfish species. Since dredges can catch groundfish by accident, those areas were closed to scallop harvest, too. Soon after, additional areas in the mid-Atlantic were closed specifically to protect scallops. Scallops were formally placed in a 10-year rebuilding plan in 1997.
Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries