April 1, 2019 — Ed Anthes-Washburn answered his cellphone on his way to work at the Port of New Bedford, Massachusetts — the US’s most valuable commercial port — on Monday morning by telling Undercurrent News that the 2019-2020 Atlantic scallop season is canceled.
“Didn’t you hear?” the port director asked. Then, with a chuckle, he proclaimed, “April Fools’!” and confirmed that he plans to play this prank all day long.
Contrary to Washburn’s joke, the 2019-2020 Atlantic scallop season has begun in New Bedford, and it promises to be another big one. After landing an estimated 56.8 million pounds of scallops between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019, harvesters are loosely projected to harvest 62.5m lbs over the next 12 months.
To make room, US scallop distributors spent last week clearing their inventory, while harvesters were using up the last of their quota from the 2018-2019 season. As Washburn put it, because of the constant work being done to boats and the 60 additional days limited access vessels have to work their quota from the end of the previous season, “The old season never really ends and the new season never really begins.”
Prices were high for the final flurry of 2018-2019 landings.