June 27, 2018 — Like Maine scallops but don’t want to pay $19 a pound or more? Feeling lucky? Come winter, maybe you can go catch your own.
This week, the Department of Marine Resources announced the final terms for two newly established lotteries for scallop fishing licenses. One lottery is for dragger licenses, the other for diver licenses. The catch, though, is that nobody knows for sure how many licenses, if any, will be available each year.
DMR has been working on a plan to bring new entrants into the scallop fishery for more than a year. The lotteries announced this week are the culmination of extensive discussions last year among members of DMR’s Scallop Advisory Council with considerable input, often heated, from industry members. Those discussions were followed by public hearings in Augusta, Machias and Ellsworth on one lottery proposal then considerable tinkering by the Legislature after those hearings ended.
The end result is a pair of lotteries open to Maine residents at least 18 years old who:
- Hold a Maine commercial fishing license or have crewed on “an active commercial scallop vessel.”
- Haven’t had a Maine commercial fishing license suspended within the past seven years
- Are not already licensed.
Just who would qualify for the lottery was fraught with controversy. Even more contentious was whether any lottery entrants would qualify for extra chances, or weighting factors, to increase their likelihood of success.
In DMR’s initial proposal, applicants would get extra chances in the lottery based on several factors related to time spent in the fishery as crew, or before the license moratorium imposed in 2009, participation in “collaborative research programs” or having a particular license to fish for scallops outside of the three-mile limit in federal waters.