July 22, 2021 — Ask any bayman, and all would agree that the bay scallop fishery in the Peconic Bay estuary system in the past two years was a total calamity. As such, it was no surprise to learn that the United States Department of Commerce recently declared the events of 2019-20 a fishery disaster.
The declaration makes the fishery eligible for disaster assistance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Baymen may also qualify for disaster assistance from the Small Business Administration, according to the Department of Commerce. The department has balances remaining from previously appropriated fishery disaster assistance and will determine the appropriate allocation for the Peconic Bay fishery, which can also include funding of habitat restoration and additional research efforts.
“Fisheries are essential to our communities and economy, and we want to ensure America is in a position to remain competitive on the global stage,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “These determinations allow us to lend a helping hand to the fishing families and communities that have experienced very real and difficult setbacks in the last few years.”
But there is also some good news, for now, regarding the popular bivalve. While it’s still early, there have been no signs of a die-off this summer among scallops that were spawned last year, according to Stephen Tettelbach, a Long Island University ecology professor who heads Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Peconic Bay Scallop Restoration Program. Dr. Tettelbach’s team conducts periodic dives of the bottomland in several locations during the year to check on the status of the growing scallops.
Dr. Tettelbach was equally enthused about the number of larval scallops in local waters. “We did the first sampling of our larval spat collectors last Monday and saw the largest scallop set in the last 17 years,” he said. “There are small bugs all over the bays.” Small or newly-hatched scallops are commonly called “bugs.”