COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 11
July 2007
F/V Liberty, SMAST tag 40,000 scallops
NEW BEDFORD, MA – In what turned out to be the largest scallop tagging expedition to date, the fishing vessel Liberty returned to port on June 8 after its research crew successfully tagged and released 40,000 scallops in Closed Area I and Closed Area II.
Veteran scalloper Capt. Danny Eilertsen carried a team of researchers and graduate students from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST). The 18 people onboard split into two watches and worked round-the-clock.
“We had a great trip,” said Kevin Stokesbury, chair of SMAST’s Department of Fisheries Oceanography.
Although the vessel sailed through some rough weather on the way out to Closed Area II, once there, the crew was able to get right down to business.
“Tagging scallops is labor intensive,” said SMAST tagging project leader Brad Harris.
“Each scallop gets handled about six times during the tagging process. The crew did an incredible job tagging 40,000 scallops in just over four days,” he said.
The tagging took place in the southern half of Closed Area II, and when asked about conditions there, Stokesbury noted that the catch contained a significant number of clappers and large starfish.
Past video surveys showed that starfish predation on scallops was a problem in the area, and during this latest tagging trip, Stokesbury said the starfish population still appeared to be “very active.”
The crew also saw a wide distribution of yellowtail flounder size ranges and a number of barndoor skates of various sizes, which Stokesbury said was “a very positive thing.”
The tagging team didn’t witness any starfish problems in Closed Area I, where bycatch overall was minimal. Roughly 20,000 scallops were tagged in each of the two areas.
Growth rates
This year’s tagging trip was part of an ongoing study by SMAST to examine scallop shell growth rates and movement. The research, among other things, is expected to help scientists comprehend the role of closed areas in scallop fishery management.
“Our goal is to better understand how and why scallop growth differs between study areas,” said Harris. “We use tagging to assess shell growth and conduct video surveys while tagging to assess population size distribution and density, as well as habitat, to examine why scallops might grow at different rates.”
Prior to this year’s expedition, SMAST and industry partners tagged 89,500 scallops in 2001, 2002, 2005, and 2006 in the Great South Channel, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Northern Edge of Georges Bank.
As of early June, fishermen had returned 7,070 of the 2001-2006 tags, and the resulting information from the recaptures was leading to some interesting findings.
Harris and Stokesbury were able to report in a paper published last year in the ICES Journal of Marine Science that scallops in the southern portion of the Great South Channel grew faster and had higher growth performance than those in the northern part of the channel.
The growth rate information is possibly the most critical part of this research. That’s because the equation scientists use to determine how much effort the fleet can put on the resource each year is completely growth-rate related, said Stokesbury.
However, the last major scallop tagging study to determine growth rates was conducted 50 years ago.
“So we’re essentially working with data that’s 50 years old,” said Stokesbury.
Given the rotational management program now in place in the Northeast, Stokesbury said, “You really need a growth equation for each area.”
More video work
The spring, summer, and fall of 2007 are turning out to be extremely busy on the cooperative research end for scallopers and SMAST.
The 2007 scallop video survey was well underway at press time in late June. The Endeavor made the first trip to the Mid-Atlantic and was followed by the Mary Anne and then the Act IV.
By the time the last leg wraps up later this summer, the survey will have covered the entire scallop resource in US waters spanning roughly 16,000 square nautical miles of seafloor from Virginia to the Hague Line.
This will be the fifth year the survey has covered the full range of the resource as recommended by SMAST’s scallop industry steering committee.
Minus SMAST overhead and related expenses, the commercial scallop industry finances almost 100% of the video survey’s operating expenses.
Last year, 82 vessels and a dozen industry-related businesses contributed cash, fuel, food, and other services totaling over $70,000. The survey itself was conducted aboard the fishing vessels Foremost, Endeavor, Resolute, Diligence, Venture, Mary Anne, and Chief & Clyde.
Donations to cover this year’s survey were still rolling in.
2006 results
The 2006 survey boats conducted four Mid-Atlantic cruises and five Georges Bank cruises and collected video samples at 1,850 stations on three-nautical-mile sized grids.
Based on an analysis of the video images, the SMAST team estimated resource-wide abundance at 8.3 billion scallops or roughly 358.3 million pounds of scallop meats.
That number was slightly higher than the 2005 estimate of 334.9 million pounds.
However, Stokesbury noted, “82% of the scallop biomass is in closed areas now compared to 61% in 2003.”
The SMAST team has been supplying the New England Fishery Management Council and stock assessment scientists with video survey results.
Last fall, the council – with strong support from industry – recommended to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that it take immediate action to reduce fishing pressure in the Elephant Trunk Area.
The council considered the findings of SMAST’s 2006 video survey, along with the NMFS survey and a third one conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in making its recommendation.
Fishing impact, habitat
According to SMAST’s Mike Marino, commercial vessels partnered with SMAST researchers to carry out three other trips in May using scallop research set-aside allocations and additional funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The first, aboard the Liberty, was to investigate the effects of fishing in the Nantucket Lightship area. The area was video surveyed in advance of the June 15 opening of the access-area fishery there, and the SMAST team hopes to conduct an additional video survey after the 2007 fishery is over. The team now has a time series of video footage from the Nantucket Lightship area going back to 1999.
This same type of before-and-after fishing impacts study will be conducted this fall in the Elephant Trunk Area, also with help from the RSA program and NOAA.
The second and third May trips were carried out aboard the Liberty and Endeavor respectively. Both boats worked on a fine-scale habitat survey on the Northern Edge of Georges Bank inside and outside the northern portion of Closed Area II, particularly around the Habitat Area of Particular Concern.
Mass delegation
Industry members aren’t the only ones to enthusiastically support SMAST’s scallop video work. The Massachusetts congressional delegation has backed the survey and strongly supports continued funding for it.
For the past three years, the delegation helped direct $2 million annually to SMAST through congressional earmarks to support overhead, video analysis, and research.
This funding was funneled through the Massachusetts Fisheries Institute (MFI), which is housed at SMAST and is jointly operated with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
In the same earmark, the institute received an additional $3 million for groundfish and lobster research.
But Congress essentially has put an end to earmarks and each government agency must now review its own projects, which means MFI’s latest funding requests for scallop, groundfish, and lobster research are currently being reviewed by NMFS and NOAA.
In a March 22 letter to NOAA Administrator Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher Jr. and NMFS Director Bill Hogarth, US Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and John Kerry (D-MA), along with US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), urged Lautenbacher and Hogarth to continue funding all of the MFI work.
Of the scallop work, Kennedy, Kerry, and Frank wrote, “Your agencies have provided funding for this project for several years, and it’s vital that it continue to be funded to avoid a serious data gap that could undermine the resource’s management.”
The delegation members further said the work will “continue data collection on scallops to determine the resource’s quantity and make scientifically based projections on future recruitment.”
Janice M. Plante
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
