January 24, 2017 — Scallops taught the United States an important lesson in sustainability.
A smart fishery management plan was meant to relieve suffering cod and flounder populations, but it also prevented the Atlantic sea scallop market from fizzling out in the ’90s.
In 1991, New England fisheries yielded 37 million pounds of scallops. Scientists started to worry when scallop landings dropped to less than 10 million pounds in 1994.
Then, regulators closed three fisheries along the Georges Bank, an underwater plateau between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. They also temporarily stopped issuing new fishing licenses, and they rotated access to certain fishing grounds.