March 6, 2025 — With a huge number of bay scallops in the harbor and only a small number of fishermen still on the water, the Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board lobbied the Select Board on Wednesday to extend Nantucket’s commercial scalloping season by nine days.
“There’s an abundance of adult scallops in the harbor,” Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board chair Andy Lowell told the Select Board members at their meeting this week. “There are very few scallopers active at this point. The ones who do rely on this for their livelihood have missed a lot of days due to cold weather – I believe 15 or 16 days have been missed for cold weather…It was decided to extend the season, it’s simply nine more days of fishing.”
The Select Board agreed, voting unanimously in favor of the recommendation from the Harbor & Shellfish Advisory Board, commonly known as “SHAB.” But the measure will still require the endorsement of the state Division of Marine Fisheries to go into effect.