March 8, 2025 — Reprinted with permission of EM4Fish:
A project led by the Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF) and Saltwater, Inc (SWI). is testing the feasibility of voluntary, cost-shared electronic monitoring (EM) on six commercial sea scallop fishing vessels in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Turbulent outlook for the fishery
After ranking among the most economically important fisheries in the United States (U.S.) over the last decade, accounting for more than $480 million of commercial landings in 2022 alone, the Atlantic sea scallop fishery is bracing for a few challenging years ahead. The total exploitable biomass of sea scallops appears to be on a downward trend, with climate change threatening the long-term health of the population. The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) estimated annual projected landings for the 2025 fishing year to generate only about $348.3 million (19.8 million pounds) in landings, a 28% reduction from 2024.
As the fishery looks for novel cost-cutting measures to weather the coming reductions in catch, the Industry-Funded Scallop (IFS) Program sticks out as large annual expenditure for all fishermen. Observers for the sea scallop fishery are managed though the IFS. In this program, vessels selected to carry an observer must pay for that coverage, equal to ~$800 each day of the trip. Although, the IFS sets aside 1% of the annual catch limit that is redistributed back to vessels to partially offset their costs for carrying an observer. In 2025, this 1% set aside would amount to about $3.5 million in landings.
In addition to observer costs, another systematic inefficiency associated with current sea scallop fishing management is the days-at-sea (DAS) calculation methodology. Currently it is not possible to determine whether a vessel is fishing or transiting from the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) alone, days-at-sea are currently calculated by transit time after a vessel crosses the VMS Demarcation Line, which runs parallel to the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Maine, and notifies the Coast Guard of its fishing activity. As a result of this rule, vessels that depart from ports closer to productive fishing regions are at an advantage. For example, a sea scallop vessel based in New Bedford, MA planning to fish on Georges Bank in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean could transit along an efficient, straight pathway. Whereas a vessel departing from Cape May, NJ might elect to transit along the U.S. coast to Nantucket before darting out of the VMS Demarcation Line to fish the same area.
By hugging the coast, vessels departing from the Mid-Atlantic consume more fuel and waste time. Furthermore, these vessels are not permitted to transit over several closed rotational sea scallop access areas, which further restricts their trajectories. If DAS could be determined based on the exact time a sea scallop dredge enters the water for the first time during a trip, individual vessels could save hundreds of thousands of dollars over a season, while spending fewer consecutive days away from their families.