Keeping these closures in place is a missed opportunity to sustainably harvest millions of dollars worth of one of the most sought-after seafood products in New England.
Editor's Note: As the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) meets today to discuss and decide matters affecting the future of New England's fishing industry, public concerns for the fate of areas currently closed to fishing in Georges Bank continue to mount. The following is an excerpt of an opinion piece that ran this morning in the New Bedford Standard-Times. Eric Hansen, a scalloper who serves on the board of the Fisheries Survival Fund, writes in support of modifications to these closures, which would allow greater access to the scallop resource.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — February 26, 2014 — The scallop fishery has become the lifeblood of the New Bedford waterfront, a bright spot in a fishing industry encumbered by onerous regulations and heavy-handed management. It has helped make New Bedford, for the 13th year in a row, the most valuable port in the nation. But, with potential cuts to the scallop catch anticipated next year, scallopers and fishing communities coast-wide face the prospect of diminished revenues and loss of stability to the scallop industry.
One way to prevent this is to finally allow the scallop fleet access to historic fishing grounds in Georges Bank, particularly in the Northern Edge, from which we have long been cut off. We have an opportunity to re-evaluate these closures with the Omnibus Habitat Amendment, considered on Tuesday by the New England Fishery Management Council.
For almost 20 years, large sections of Georges Bank have been closed to commercial fishermen and scallopers, part of a larger management effort aimed at protecting habitats and limiting overfishing. When the closures were put in place, it was thought that by keeping fishermen and scallopers out of these areas, juvenile groundfish, particularly cod, would benefit from undisturbed access to the area's gravel habitat, which was thought to be beneficial as a source of food and refuge from predator species. Unfortunately, little empirical evidence has emerged since the closures were enacted to demonstrate positive benefits have arisen from these regulations.
The closures have also put some of the best scallop grounds in New England out of reach. The Northern Edge may hold as much as 10 percent of Georges Bank's scallops, with one closed portion alone being home to almost 20 million pounds of scallops. The scallop concentrations here are both dense and abundant, a big part of why Georges Bank has historically been integral to our fishery.
Keeping these closures in place is a missed opportunity to sustainably harvest millions of dollars worth of one of the most sought-after seafood products in New England. With the average scallop only having a life expectancy of 16 years, an entire generation has gone unharvested since the early 1990s. Scallops that can sell for upwards of $10 per pound on the market instead age and lose value. This is all in support of a management system with questionable benefits: Since the initial closures there has been little follow-up research on their effect on the area's groundfish, and no definitive evidence that they've actually benefited groundfish in the way they were intended.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric Hansen is a local fisherman and scalloper with over 25 years of experience in the industry. He serves on the board of the Fisheries Survival Fund.
Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times