April 10, 2025 — Students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School, all members of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program, gathered on April 4 at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington to count scallop spat in an effort to predict where beds of the bivalve mollusk might appear.
Spat is the term researchers use to describe post-larval, or juvenile, scallops. These tiny creatures, measuring roughly 1/8 inch, will mature over time into the delicious scallops treasured by diners.
The spat, members of the species Plactopecten magellanicus, or Atlantic deep-sea scallop, are found from North Carolina to the Gulf of St Lawrence. Local scallops are either harvested in the wild near shore or raised in one of several local aqua farms in and around Penobscot Bay.