WHITING, Maine — January 17, 2014 — State officials met with fishermen on Friday to warn them of impending emergency action to reduce dragging and diving for scallops.
The meeting in the Whiting Community Center was standing room only, with about 100 fishermen present. They did not take the news well, and at times there were testy exchanges between fishermen and Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the state Department of Marine Resources.
Fishermen, who are enjoying record high prices at about $12-13 per pound, already have harvested 278,100 pounds of scallops from Cobscook Bay this season, reported Trisha De Graaf, a state marine resource management coordinator who briefed fisherman at the outset of the meeting. That figure represents about 73 percent of the harvestable biomass of 380,100 pounds. Any additional harvest would be tantamount to overfishing the resource, she said.
More than twice as many boats are fishing the bay compared to the start of last season, according to De Graaf. She attributed the increase to the bay’s healthy scallop fishery and also the closing of the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery in December.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News