Saving Seafood

New England reefs: Their world is the oyster

March 5, 2026 — Horseradish, cocktail sauce, or straight up? However you take your oyster, their near extinction may be difficult to swallow.

A little over 100 years ago, U.S. fishermen landed roughly 1.5 billion pounds of the craggy bivalve per year, compared to just 29.7 million pounds in 2022.

Oysters’ disappearance means more than just an increase in the price of your happy hour. Without them, water quality dips, sea grass beds recede, and salt marshes erode.

For these reasons and more, The Nature Conservancy is hoping to bring back critical oyster reefs in Massachusetts, beginning with restoration projects in Westport, Fairhaven, Mashpee, and Bourne. If successful, the wild oyster colonies will improve water quality in New England’s estuaries and help form the foundation for more erosion- and flood-resistant “living shorelines.”

But first, residents will have to resist eating them.

In 2025, The Nature Conservancy partnered with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Cape Cod Conservation District to develop a program to restore the region’s coastal habitat, including its historic oyster reefs.

The Nature Conservancy identified several communities on the Cape and the South Coast best primed for oyster restoration with the goal of rebuilding 10% to 20% of the shellfish’s original habitat.

Now, Nature Conservancy Coastal Project Manager Dan Goulart travels town to town hoping to convince residents that oysters are worth keeping around — and not just on the half-shell. In January, Goulart led a talk for members of the Westport River Watershed Alliance, ahead of his presentation to the Westport Select Board this spring.

In his talk, Goulart connected the healthy oyster population to historic pastimes like bay scallop fishing, which depend on a healthy eel grass system supported by oysters.

“To me, engaging in this restoration, bringing these oysters back … that is like preserving our historic heritage and who we are as New Englanders,” Goulart said.

Read the full article at the The New Bedford Light

MAINE: Want local scallops? Now’s the time to find ’em

December 3, 2024 — Scallops, briny and delicious and from local waters, are ready for dining at home and in restaurants as the commercial scallop season opens across all Maine fishing zones.

Commercial diving and dragging for scallops is divided into three zones, with fishing areas in Hancock County and parts of Washington County within Zone 2. Divers in Zone 2 began hand-catching scallops Nov. 17 but dragging is just underway, while both diving and dragging open in Zones 1 and 3 in early December.

As Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) balances the health of the state’s scallop resources against the needs of the commercial fishing industry, Upper Machias Bay, Moosabec Reach and Upper Cranberries in Zone 2 are closed for recovery and rebuilding, while scallop fishing grounds in Gouldsboro and Dyers Bay, along with Upper Blue Hill Bay, are established as new limited access areas.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Maine Shuts Down 2 Scallop Fishing Areas

January 3, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — Maine fishing regulators are shutting down a pair of scallop fishing areas to protect the health of the population.

Scallops are one of the most valuable marine resources in Maine on a per-pound basis. The Maine Department of Marine Resources says it’s closing Hussey Sound in Casco Bay and Rogue Island Harbor as of Jan. 1.

Casco Bay is in the state’s southern scalloping zone while Rogue Island Harbor is in the zone that includes mid-coast and Downeast Maine.

Maine scallops were worth nearly $13 per pound at the dock in 2017. That is the highest figure in history. The scallops are a popular premium seafood product with markets and restaurants.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

 

New York: Huge scallop harvest, growth in oyster farming boost East End

December 1, 2017 — An abundance of plumped-up bay scallops from waters around the Peconic Bay is giving Long Island’s East End shellfishing industry a vital boost.

With the industry already thriving from a resurgence of oysters, the plentiful scallop harvest is buoying businesses from the East End to Manhattan, where scallops and oysters from Long Island waters are prominent in fish markets and on restaurant menus.

Since the scallop season opened with a strong start in early November, fish dealers have been buying hundreds of pounds a day. The surge in volume is keeping fishermen, shuckers, wholesalers and seafood store owners busy, but it has also pushed prices down. Scallops are selling for less than $20 a pound, in some cases as low as $15, down from around $35 last year.

Some dealers had difficulty keeping up with the harvest at first, advertising for scallop shuckers on road-side signs. Customers who typically buy a pound or two are buying 4 and 5 pounds, shop owners say. Restaurants are finding ways to keep scallops on the menu.

Read the full story at Newsday

 

VIMS turns to crowdsourcing to save bay scallops

April 24, 2017 — In the 1920s, the bay scallop fishery in Virginia was booming, hitting a peak harvest in 1929.

Then, in the course of a few short years, the bottom fell out of the fishery — almost literally.

A hemisphere-wide wasting disease began attacking eelgrass, a primary habitat for young scallops growing in high-salinity coastal bays. As a result, Virginia’s scallop harvest dropped in 1930. It dropped even more in 1931and even more in 1932.

Then, calamity struck in 1933 when a Category 1 hurricane slammed the state, wiping out what was left of ailing eelgrass beds in the coastal bays.

That year, Virginia watermen harvested no bay scallops at all. The species was wiped out in the state.

“The bay scallop was extinct locally,” said Mark Luckenbach, ecologist and associate dean of research and advisory services at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point. “Not reduced in numbers like oysters or eelgrass — it was extinct. The closest populations were in North Carolina to the south and New Jersey to the north.”

Read the full story at the Daily Press

Opening day results point to disappointing scallop season

November 8, 2016 — On the first day of Peconic Bay scallop season Monday, local fishermen and seafood retailers were lamenting what they called a rough start out on the water.  

While the windy weather was a factor in reaching some of the better spots, baymen said they mostly just weren’t finding the sort of volume they normally encounter on opening day.

The results so far indicate you won’t find bay scallops on too many restaurant menus this year or for very long.

“It will be a short and sweet season,” said Southold Fish Market owner Charlie Manwaring, who only had five bushels at his store by 1 p.m. Monday. “We’re going to have scallops, but it’s not going to be what it has been the last few years.”

By 3 p.m. Mr. Manwaring reported having 30 bushels, less than a quarter of what he had at the same time on opening day 2015, which was also considered a slow start.

Things weren’t much different a little farther west on Main Road at Braun’s Seafood in Cutchogue, where manager Keith Reda said there “seems to be a lot less scallops” than usual.

Read the full story at the Suffolk Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Shellfish, except bay scallops, still off-limits

October 24th, 2016 — Shellfish harvesting — with the exception of bay scallops — continues to be banned in Nantucket waters because of toxic plankton, which first arrived Oct. 7 in Cape Cod waters and made its way to the island a few days later.

“On Tuesday the state Division of Marine Fisheries requested shellfish to sample and we sent them 20 oysters from the harbor for tissue testing,” said Jeff Carlson, Nantucket’s natural resources coordinator.

“Hopefully they can get the testing done quickly and if it comes back clean, we can open things back up.”

Carlson said he did not know how long the state would take to test the samples and added it had sent out similar requests to towns bordering Nantucket Sound that have been included in the harvesting ban.

The reason for the state-mandated closure is plankton called Pseudo-nitzschia that produces a toxin that if consumed leads to amnesic shellfish poisoning. Symptoms of such poisoning include nausea, abdominal cramps, vomiting, dementia, amnesia, permanent loss of short-term memory and, in extreme cases, coma or death.

Read the full story at The Cape Cod Times 

MASSACHUSETTS: Season Opens for Dwindling Scallops in Buzzards Bay

October 5th, 2016 — The calendar has turned to October and that marks the opening of the recreational bay scallop harvest season in Buzzards Bay.

The bay scallop population in Buzzards Bay has suffered in part to nitrogen pollution – falling from 70,000 bushels harvested in the 1970s and 80s to just 1,500 bushels today, According to the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

Bay scallops live along eelgrass beds which grow underwater in shallow harbors, coves and tidal rivers. The scallops depend on the eelgrass during reproduction as small juvenile bay scallops attach to the blades before dropping off when they grow large enough.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com 

SUSAN POLLACK: Fishing For Progress: Saying No To ‘No Women On Board’

June 10, 2016 — In 1982, as supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment fought claims that that the proposed amendment to the Constitution would destroy the American family, I confronted an older mythology: Women are bad luck on boats.

I was a young maritime reporter for The East Hampton Star on Eastern Long Island. I loved boats and the sea, and I’d always loved adventure. That summer, I planned to join local fishermen aboard a state-of-the-art Japanese squid ship. This was several years after the United States enacted its 200-mile limit, but before American fishermen had fully developed a squid fishery of their own. In exchange for sharing their technical know-how, the Japanese would be permitted to catch squid in our waters.

I was game.

But as I was readying my boots and gear, I received an unexpected warning from the American sponsors of the U.S-Japan venture: no women on board.

Surely, something must be wrong: I’d spent the previous five years in gurry-soaked oil skins reporting on life at sea on American draggers, lobster boats, bay scallopers, gillnetters, long-liners and clamming rigs. I’d photographed the sun rising over the stern of a dragger hauling its catch of yellowtail and blackback flounders, cod, haddock and scup. I’d spent bone-chilling winter days in an open skiff, culling bay scallops – separating the delicate fan-shaped bivalves from whelks, rocks and seaweed. I’d danced on the boat, not for joy, but to keep warm.

On summer evenings, I’d helped my neighbor lift his gillnets, gingerly plucking out sharp-toothed bluefish and the occasional striper. And I’d finally succeeded in filleting a flounder without mangling the fragile flesh.

Read the full story at WBUR

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission shortens, but does not suspend, bay scallop season

June 30, 2016 — Apparently one message from locals was heard by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

There was certainly public feedback that in the face of declining numbers the 2016 scallop season should be, as agency researchers had planned in April, suspended in St. Joseph Bay.

But, the board of the FWC last week also took note of the economics and input from some sectors that any season was better than no season and decided to shorten, but not suspend, the 2016 bay scallop harvest season in St. Joseph Bay.

The decision came two days before the bay scallop season began statewide.

In the other areas of the state where scallop populations support public harvesting, the season began last Saturday and will continue through Sept. 24.

Read the full story at The Star