August 12, 2012 — Brewer would like to see more of these boats return to scalloping — this time by farming scallops. That could make better business and environmental sense. In some places, sea scallops are still plentiful. But in others their numbers have been reduced. Farming scallops would take pressure off the natural stocks.
If you don't love scallops, you probably just haven't had one that's cooked properly. That is, pan fried with some garlic and butter and herbs. They are very tasty.
Out on the water off Stonington, Marsden Brewer is motoring his lobster boat through the crowded fishing harbor. Today, just about all the boats here are lobster boats. But 30 years ago, he says, it was a different story.
"You see all the boats and stuff? Come Nov. 1, most of them would all be rigged up for scalloping. There was that many scallops in [the] shore here," Brewer says. "Now there's maybe four boats that go."
Brewer says there just aren't as many scallops to catch these days in this area. (Offshore, in fishing grounds such as Georges Bank, federal regulations that started going into effect in the late 1990s have helped scallops make a huge comeback. And seafood watchdog groups list them as a good choice for people who eat seafood. But inshore there are still far fewer sea scallops than there used to be.)
An Aquaculture Experiment
Brewer would like to see more of these boats return to scalloping — this time by farming scallops. That could make better business and environmental sense. In some places, sea scallops are still plentiful. But in others their numbers have been reduced. Farming scallops would take pressure off the natural stocks.
Outside the harbor, Brewer motors over to one of his green and orange lobster buoys. He grabs the buoy and uses the winch on his lobster boat to haul up an experiment — two big wire mesh cages that he's farming sea scallops in.
On board, Brewer has a scientist who's helping with this aquaculture testing. Dana Morse is with the Maine Sea Grant program and University of Maine Cooperative Extension, which works with farmers and fishermen.
"Oh, I'm psyched here. We stocked them a couple of weeks ago and so this is my first look since," Morse says.
Pretty soon, out of the clear cold Maine water, the scallop farming cages rise up from the bottom 50 feet below, and the two men lift them onto the deck of the boat. The crates are filled with thousands of small baby scallops.
The cages are about 4 feet wide and several feet high. Inside, stacks of mesh-lined trays hold and protect the scallops, which are each a little smaller than a dime at this stage.
Scallops are not like mussels that just sit stuck to a rock. These little guys squeeze water out of their shells to propel them away from starfish or other predators. That's why you have to farm them in cages; otherwise, they'd swim away. They also have rows of deep blue eyes in between their shells.
"Little sea scallops — they're beautiful little beasts. Particularly when they're young, you get all these zigzag, modeled stripy colors in there," Morse says.
The scallops fetch a nice price at the dock, too. Lately, the price of lobster has plummeted and that's hurting fishermen like Brewer. So this is another way to make money. Instead of just pulling up lobster traps, one day they could be pulling up crates full of farmed scallops.
"Just the future for the community is what it amounts to. You know, I've been involved in most all the fisheries over the course of my life, and this is — lobsters — about the only one left," Brewer says.
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