August 16, 2012 — After nearly a decade, it looks like efforts to restore the population of Southwest Florida's scallop are paying off. Researchers will count scallops in Pine Island Sound Saturday and anticipate finding even more than last year.
Some say the taste of a Southwest Florida bay scallop is unforgettable.
"When you bite into it, whether it's prepared with panko, steamed in garlic, I mean that is heaven, that is heaven," said Captain Cathy Eagle.
Eagle remembers a time when fishermen found plenty of scallops in Pine Island Sound. That was before overfishing wiped them out and regulators made it illegal to harvest them.
"You want to make sure that we don't ever have this problem again," said Captain Rich Russell.
Russell hopes to one day lead recreational scallop fishing tours.
"They're an important part of the ecosystem and they've been here historically so we want to bring them back," said Eric Milbrandt, Director of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation's Marine Lab at Tarpon Bay.
In the past nine years, his group has led efforts to restore the scallop population.
"They could be an important fishery locally if we could get the population back," said Milbrandt.
One way researchers have been increasing the population is by putting scallops from Tampa inside cages and into the water at Tarpon Bay where they're protected from predators.
The numbers show it's working.
A graph provided by the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation shows spikes in scallop growth in the years following major efforts to cage them.
Read the full story from WZVN.