By RICHARD DEGENER Staff Writer | Posted: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Crewmen from the Sea Quest and dock workers offload and weigh the catch of scallops at the Lobster House dock. New government regulations will cut the Atlantic harvest of sea scallops by 25 percent.
Photo by: Dale Gerhard
LOWER TOWNSHIP — Icicles were hanging off the scallop boat Sea Quest as it came to port at the Lobster House dock after four days at sea.
Fishing for scallops 45 miles east of Atlantic City in January was brutally cold, but Sea Quest Capt. Jim Clarke had more on his mind than the weather.
Clarke’s problem is a new management plan that would slash catches by about 25 percent in the next fishing season, which begins March 1 and runs through February 2011.
From North Carolina to Maine, commercial fishermen have been protesting the proposed cutback, banding together under a group called the Fisheries Survival Fund. The group, which represents scallop fishermen, has been fighting the proposed cut since November. Just this week, the group achieved a measure of success when the New England Fishery Management Council agreed to revisit the issue.
“We have a saying: It all comes out of the hatch,” said Clarke as his crew unloaded 8,500 pounds of fresh scallops from the boat.
In recent years, while other fisheries collapsed, or regulations cut them back, the scallop harvest kept growing at docks in Cape May, Point Pleasant, Barnegat Light and other ports.
Scallops were the top species landed in New Jersey in 2008 with 13.3 million pounds harvested, worth $91.5 million.
That is the price paid to fishermen. The National Marine Fisheries Service multiplies the value of seafood by six times as it moves to retailers, wholesalers and consumers. That means the value of the New Jersey scallop harvest is worth more than $500 million.
Lobster House owner Keith Laudeman said the cutback will cost each scallop boat an estimated 38,000 pounds of scallops next year at about $6 a pound.
“It’s about one quarter of a million dollars per boat,” Laudeman said.
The proposal from the New England Fishery Management Council, which regulates scallops, would eliminate one specific trip of 18,000 pounds for each boat. Scallopers had five of these trips to specified scallop beds last year and would get four this year.
The proposal would also cut the number of days at sea in open bottom from 37 to 29. Laudeman said this would eliminate another 20,000 pounds per boat.
The harvest has been growing due to what’s considered innovative and successful management by the New England Council. That same council, often praised by fishermen, is under attack for cutting harvests when stocks are not declining and may even be growing.
“The total biomass increased between 2008 and 2009 from 300 million pounds to 307 million pounds on the East Coast,” said Kevin Stokesbury, who runs a scallop survey from Virginia through Maine for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
The New England Council doesn’t dispute the numbers, just the size of the shellfish.
“There are tons but they’re not very big,” said council spokeswoman Patricia Fiorelli.
Clarke is worried that he might not make it to the time when the small scallops are ready to harvest. He noted fuel prices are suddenly rising and certain fixed expenses, such as insurance, stay the same no matter what the harvest level.
On this trip, Clarke had to pay almost $800 a day to have a “government observer” on board his boat, which in the past would at least give him extra poundage or additional days fishing. This year that was taken away. The cutbacks are just one more worry.
“I don’t think it’s justified. It’s hard to tell because we don’t know what their future plans are,” Clarke said.
The cuts resulted in 1,300 scallopers, seafood dealers and other dependent businesses protesting directly to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the New England Council. Lawmakers from East Coast states, especially in Massachusetts — scallops are the most valuable catch in New Bedford — also pressured the council.
On Monday afternoon, council Chairman John Pappalardo announced he would revisit the issue at a public meeting Jan. 27 in Portsmouth, N.H.
“I’d be very impressed if they said they were wrong and gave it back to us. It’s unlikely,” Clarke said.
Peter Hughes, operations manager at Atlantic Capes Fisheries in Lower Township, sits on the council’s Scallop Advisory Panel and will push for higher catches. Hughes said a 25 percent cut would lead to idling one quarter of the work force. He said industries that supply the scallop fleet, such as fuel dealers and marine equipment companies, will face similar cuts.
“It just has this huge ripple effect through the industry,” said Hughes, adding: “Why are we laying off people when we’re trying to stimulate the economy?”
Even if the council reconsiders its decision, it’s not likely to return landings to 2009 levels.
Deirdre Boelke, a fisheries analyst for the council, said one problem is harvests keep exceeding forecasts. There is no exact quota in scalloping and the real catch has been higher than the projected catch in recent years.
In 2008 scallopers landed 53 million pounds, 8 million more than projected, worth $370 million. This season ends Feb. 28 with landings expected to be 56 million pounds, or 10 million pounds over projections.
With these overages, Boelke said the council decided between two proposals that both had cuts from actual harvest levels in recent years. It picked the larger cutback of the two, a 13 percent reduction over the other option. She said it would cut catches by only $40 million over the projected catch of $304 million.
Allowing small scallops to grow, the council argues, will boost landings by an average of $12 million a year from 2011-2016.
“If you wait for these small scallops to grow there’s a greater return,” Boelke said.
She said the cuts are also expected to increase prices by 4 cents a pound, which will reduce the economic impacts.
Boelke said if the council wants to “stick with the science” then it will not change its mind. Clarke said he doesn’t understand the science, but does understand fishing.
“We’re seeing as many scallops as we’ve ever seen,” Clarke said.
Contact Richard Degener:
609-463-6711
Kristen Chilleri
MBI GluckShaw
212 West State Street
Trenton, New Jersey 08608
Main (609) 392-3100
Direct (609) 802-0253
