June 28, 2012 – Instead of seeking a meal this year, scallop hunters might consider a different spot on the table.
Researchers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg have completed their surveys of the bay and the survey says that scallop numbers are significantly off the stocks of 2011 and 2010.
The season, said Steve Geiger with the Research Institute, may be one in which hunters might want to aim to share the crop, the goal maybe a smaller take than last year.
“Instead of going out and trying to catch dinner, maybe they ought to think about going out for an appetizer,” Geiger said. “What (researchers) are seeing is way down.”
The scallop season begins Sunday and continues through Sept. 10.
Each year, researchers place 20 transect lines of 300 meters in length at stations around the bay.
The configuration works like this: the first station is just off the boat ramp at Frank Pate Park and researchers work in a horseshoe around the south end of the bay and up to T. H. Stone St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.
In all, roughly 12,000 square meters of the bay are surveyed, a diver dipping underwater at one end of each transect and counting scallops along the length of the line.
Read the full story at The Star.