The New England Fishery Management Council voted to shift nearly half of the yellowtail catch allotted to the scallopers to fishermen who chase cod and other bottom-dwelling groundfish.
It amounts to a nearly 70 percent increase in the fishermen's yellowtail catch this year.
In return, the scallopers won't be penalized if they exceed their new, lower catch limit for yellowtail.
Some environmental groups objected to a provision that exempts the scallopers from penalties — such as being temporarily prohibited from certain fishing areas — if they exceed their new catch limit.
"It seems that we're creating fish out of thin air here, and it's not supportable and it's not accountable," said Gib Brogan of Oceana.
But scallop industry advocates said their yellowtail catch would still be closely tracked.
Drew Minkiewicz of the Fishermen's Survival Fund, an industry group representing scalloping interests, conceded that the council and the scallopers were taking a "drastic step," but said the impulse to get both fisheries "to maximize" output justified the action.
The scalloping fleet has been making progress in reducing its bycatch of yellowtail both with gear innovations and communications that warn scallop boats away from beds found to have concentrations of yellowtail. The fleet caught fewer than 100 metric tons of yellowtail last year, Minkiewicz said in a telephone interview.
He also credited Rauch with the knack of galvanizing competing interests into common interests.
"You came up with a good solution, Sam," agreed Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, president of the Gloucester Community Fishing Preservation Fund and an active fisherman. "This is problem solving."
But behind the expressions of relief was a widespread concern for signs of a downward spiral in the vitality of the Georges Bank ecosystem.
Richie Canastra of BASE New England, which runs fish auctions, said the poor projections are a product of poor science that's overstating the problems with yellowtail.
But Ron Smolowitz a researcher with the Fisheries Survival Fund, a scallopers group, said there's clearly something wrong with yellowtail.
"I have big concerns," Ron Smolowitz, also of the Fishermen's Survival Fund, told the council. "There's something significant going on out there independent of the fishery.
"Some people believe the (stock) survey is at fault; that's not the problem," he said. "There's a fishery without large fish, fish are underweight and not replacing (themselves). Something is wrong with the fish that (has) nothing to do with fishing."
Read the Associated Press story by Jay Lindsay in the Boston Globe.
Read the Gloucester Times story by Richard Gaines.