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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 12
August 2008
Scallop dredge survey underway on R/V Sharp
WOODS HOLE, MA – The 2008 federal scallop dredge survey was in full swing in mid-July aboard the 146' research vessel Hugh R. Sharp.
The first 18-day leg, which spanned the Mid-Atlantic, was successfully completed shortly after Independence Day. The vessel then began the second leg, covering bottom from Southern New England to Georges Bank.
“We’re conducting a full-scale survey,” confirmed Russell Brown, chief of the Ecosystem Surveys Branch at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
He also noted that the survey includes numerous stations in each of the major closed areas.
NMFS contracted the Sharp, which is owned by the University of Delaware and home-ported in Lewes, DE, because the Albatross IV, which previously handled the government’s annual scallop surveys, is being decommissioned after 45 years of service.
According to Brown, NMFS is hoping to use the Sharp for the 2009 and 2010 surveys as well.
“The intent is to be on the vessel for at least three years,” he said.
UNOLS vessel
The Sharp was officially commissioned in May of 2006 and is a state-of-the-art boat that meets the rigorous safety and performance standards required to earn a UNOLS rating.
UNOLS stands for University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System, and the federal government often contracts UNOLS-classified vessels for projects that can’t be carried out – for a variety of reasons – by its own fleet.
Even though the Henry B. Bigelow is replacing the Albatross, the Bigelow wasn’t designed for dredge surveys. Instead, it specializes in trawl gear and acoustic surveys.
The science center, while acknowledging the inevitable learning curve associated with transitioning any major resource survey to a new vessel, is confident the Sharp can adequately do the job for scallops, said Brown.
Although a University of Delaware crew operates the Sharp, the science center took steps to facilitate the personnel transition between survey vessels. It arranged for Tony Viera, a former commercial fisherman and the chief bosun on several previous Albatross scallop survey cruises, to be onboard the Sharp for both legs of the 2008 scallop survey. Viera’s job is to ensure the gear works properly.
Same dredge frame
The scallop survey dredge on the Sharp is very similar to the one used by the Albatross but was modified following considerable industry input.
“We’re using the same dredge frame, but we’ve made minor changes to the way the bag is hung,” said Brown.
The planned vessel transition from the Albatross to the Sharp provided a prime opportunity to “critically evaluate the scallop survey dredge,” Brown said.
The center decided to work directly with industry members through the Scallop Survey Advisory Panel and held a hands-on workshop in New Bedford last year with the dredge gear.
As a result of the workshop and consultations with fishermen and gear experts, the center added a wheel to the bale, reconfigured the ring bag and twine top, and rehung the rings and sweep “to achieve a more even configuration,” Brown said. The center also redesigned the inclinometer bracket. The inclinometer is the instrument that measures the dredge angle.
The reconfigured dredge was tested on an industry vessel last summer and compared to the performance of the original Albatross dredge – something called “standard dredge comparison tows.” The testing was conducted by industry under a project funded through the scallop research set-aside program.
According to Brown, NMFS is comfortable that the dredge bag modifications have been properly scrutinized and tested.
He said Charlie Quinn of New Bedford was “particularly instrumental in the gear redesign process.”
Quinn has long been involved in cooperative research efforts. In 1997, he and his crew aboard the Celtic were recognized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with an Environmental Heroes Award for assisting in “several key biological surveys and marine conservation projects.”
Industry concerns
During the New England Fishery Management Council’s June 3-5 meeting in Portland, several industry members voiced concerns over the shift to a new scallop survey vessel and the dredge changes.
“I can’t understand why we want to start with all new things,” said New Bedford vessel owner Harriet Didriksen, who advocated for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s scallop video survey as the primary means for assessing the status of the scallop resource.
“This is a commercial fishery and there’s a lot at risk here. You’re working with real people,” she said.
Dredges, HabCam
Bill DuPaul of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program said he supported the video survey but thought the dredge survey also was important, as was continued development of the “HabCam” system.
HabCam is a “habitat camera mapping system” that takes high-resolution digital images when the camera itself is towed above the bottom. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and involved industry members are advancing the technology, and many think it holds significant promise for helping obtain scallop density estimates in the future.
This summer, the HabCam system is aboard the fishing vessel Kathy Marie and is being deployed at about 100 of the stations visited by the Sharp in order to evaluate dredge performance and efficiency. More information about the HabCam system is available online at <http://habcam.whoi.edu>.
DuPaul emphasized, “All survey technologies have a place in this process. It’s very important to count the scallops, but it’s also important to know the yield of those scallops, which you can do with dredge surveys. Dredge surveys have real value.”
DuPaul didn’t think the Sharp’s dredge configuration would alter the survey results.
“It really isn’t a new dredge,” he said. “Industry had active participation in the selection of that dredge and the calibration.”
Multiple approaches
Ron Smolowitz of the Fisheries Survival Fund, who participated in the dredge bag modification process, agreed.
“I think we’re going down the right path with the multiple survey approaches,” he said.
Furthermore, New England council staffer Andy Applegate, chair of the council’s Scallop Survey Advisory Panel, said the panel overall supported pursuing all three scallop survey methods – video surveys, the HabCam, and traditional dredge surveys.
While acknowledging the strong support for video surveys, Applegate said, “The consensus of the advisory panel was that there continues to be a value in long-term dredge surveys to bring animals to the surface. Multiple sources of information are useful and reduce variance.”
Shift in timing
According to Brown, NMFS is planning to start the 2009 scallop dredge survey – hopefully aboard the Sharp – in May, which is at least a full month earlier than previous surveys. The earlier start date is in response to the New England council’s management schedule and the March 1 start of the scallop fishing year, he said.
The way it works now, survey cruises take place during the summer and the council’s scallop plan development team (PDT) receives survey data in September or October.
The PDT analyzes the information as quickly as possible and develops recommendations for the scallop committee. The committee then recommends management actions to the full council, which makes final decisions and submits measures to NMFS for approval and implementation.
That’s a lot of steps to accomplish in such a short timeframe, and new scallop regulations on several occasions have missed their March 1 target for implementation, forcing scallopers to work under the previous year’s measures on a temporary basis.
Beginning the survey in May should allow the science center to forward data to the PDT a bit earlier, which in turn would give the scallop committee, the full New England council, NMFS, and industry a bit more breathing room, Brown said.
Janice M. Plante
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