Scallop Archives - Saving Seafood

How ocean mapping changed the way a seafood giant fishes

June 5, 2019 — North America’s largest shellfish company showcased some of its advanced ocean-mapping technology Tuesday at an Oceans Week conference in Dartmouth, N.S., illustrating how it is making the industry more efficient and sustainable.

Geographic information systems, or GIS, has transformed the way Clearwater Seafoods fishes, said Jim Mosher, the company’s director of harvest science.

Ocean mapping reduced the fuel bill in its offshore lobster fishery by shaving nearly 10,000 kilometres a year in vessel transiting, or movement in the fishing ground, he said.

In the scallop fishery, this technology reveals areas that should be closed because scallops are too young to harvest.

Read the full story at CBC

Atlantic scallop haul tops 60 million pounds

May 24, 2019 — The valuable 13-month Atlantic sea scallop 2018 fishing year wrapped up on March 31, with prices strong for final landings. While final data is not yet available, preliminary NOAA estimates for fishing year 2018 show 60.1 million pounds landed.

“This is 107 percent of the projected landings for fishing year 2018, but that does not represent an overage of any type,” said Travis Ford, NOAA’s sea scallops fishery manager.

“At the beginning of the year, the price took a bit of a dive because of the influx of product, but ended up leveling out later in the year,” said Ford.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

US scallop prices still in ‘sawtooth’ mode; U-10s less common

April 29, 2019 — Steven Costas has an expression that he uses when talking to his buyers about the period that typically follows a month or more after the new Atlantic scallop season opens: “the beginning of price discovery”.

It’s when the up and down “sawtooth” pattern of prices begins to flatten out, and more consistently stay on the lower end, explains the account executive at Marder Fresh & Frozen Sales, a seafood wholesaler based in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

That could be what’s beginning to happen for 10-20s, the most common size of scallops landed, at the big New Bedford auction more than three weeks into the season, reveals a review of prices by Undercurrent News. However, the teeth of the saw remain pretty pointy for big scallops – sizes 10 and 12 – as they’ve not been as easy to find as the beginning of last season and, as a result, are commanding higher stickers.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Maine Scallopers Hope for Better Haul as ’19 Season Ends

April 15, 2019 — Maine’s scallop season is ending for the year amid hopes that fishermen had a stronger season than they did a year ago.

Fishermen harvest Maine scallops with dragger boats or by diving for the shellfish and collecting them by hand. The dragger season is over, and the dive season is finished everywhere except southern Maine, where it officially ends on April 20.

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

Lang’s addition helps Lund’s plant scallop flag in New Bedford

March 21, 2019 — Lund’s Fisheries is already known as one of the US’ most dominant producers, processors, exporters and importers of squid, but the additions made recently by the 64-year-old Cape May, New Jersey, company could soon make it a bigger player in the scallop industry, too.

The company, in February, announced the hiring of Jeffrey Lang, the founder and former president of Sea Born Products, as callop distributor and importer in the US’ scallop capital of New Bedford, Massachusetts, along with Donna Pimental, a trusted 13-year employee at Sea Born.

Lund’s president Jeff Reichle told Undercurrent News in a recent interview that the additions were further evidence of the company’s commitment to the species.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

New England Council eying more monitoring of some fisheries

November 16, 2018 — The New England Fisheries Management Council wants to standardize future industry-funded monitoring incorporated into other fisheries beyond the Northeast multispecies groundfishery and the scallop fishery.

The council is soliciting public comment on a proposal to increase industry-funded monitoring in certain fisheries “to assess the amount and type of catch and reduce uncertainty around catch estimates,” according to the summary of the proposed rule published in the Federal Register.

The proposal specifically would increase industry-funded monitoring in the Atlantic herring industry, as well.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily News

NOAA Fisheries Sets 2018-2020 Catch Limits for Groundfish Stocks and Announces Other Management Measures for the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan

May 1, 2018 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Through Framework 57, we have set catch limits for 20 groundfish stocks for the 2018-2020 fishing years (May 1, 2018-April 30, 2020), including the 3 stocks managed jointly with Canada.

Framework 57 increases quotas for 11 stocks compared to 2017, including: Georges Bank cod (139%), Gulf of Maine cod (41%), and Gulf of Maine haddock (190%). Quotas are decreasing for nine stocks, including Southern New England yellowtail flounder (-75%) and Gulf of Maine winter flounder (-45%).

We expect increases in the quotas for Gulf of Maine cod, Gulf of Maine haddock, and Georges Bank cod to provide additional economic revenue and flexibility to the commercial groundfish industry. Overall, we expect the measures in Framework 57 to generate $9 million in additional gross revenues this fishing year compared to last year.

Framework 57 also:

Revises the way common pool quotas are split between trimesters for six stocks.
Modifies the Atlantic halibut accountability measures.
Changes the trigger for the scallop fishery’s accountability measure for the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder stock to when total catch exceeds the overall catch limit.
Revises the southern windowpane flounder accountability measure for the summer flounder, scup, and skate fisheries.
Sets a Georges Bank cod catch target of 138 mt for the recreational fishery and grants the Regional Administrator authority to set recreational measures for 2018 and 2019 to prevent the catch target from being exceeded. A separate rule implements new Georges Bank cod recreational measures.

Read the final rule as filed in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin on our website.

NOAA seeks lifetime ban for jailed New Bedford fishing mogul

January 11, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is seeking a lifetime ban from the fishing industry for jailed New Bedford fishing mogul Carlos Rafael, a revocation of the permit for his wholesale fish dealership, and a revocation of 38 fishing permits from 28 of his vessels. NOAA is also seeking new penalties in two additional cases unrelated to the one that put him in prison, according to a spokeswoman for the agency.

Rafael is serving a 46-month sentence after pleading guilty last year to falsifying fish quotas, false labeling of fish species, conspiracy, smuggling large amounts of cash out of the country and tax evasion. In September, a federal judge ordered U.S. Marshals to seize four of his fishing vessels and their fishing permits as part of a plea deal in the criminal case against Rafael, once the owner of one of the nation’s largest fishing fleets.

Rafael owned at least 44 vessels, including 10 vessels with scallop permits and 43 that also had lobster permits, the two most valuable fisheries in the Northeast. Many of those vessels continued to fish, even after he was jailed. But in November, NOAA regional director John Bullard ordered groundfish Sector IX, a fishing cooperative dominated by Rafael to stop fishing, saying the sector had failed to account for his illegal fish and hadn’t enforced its own rules. There are 60 groundfish permits in Sector IX, 22 of which were actively fishing.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Fisheries council boosts Gulf of Maine quotas for cod, haddock, pollock

December 11, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council voted to increase cod and pollock quotas for 2018, a move that is expected to benefit New England’s fishing industry.

The council passed a rule Thursday that sets new quotas and has a number of other groundfish adjustments.

The species with substantial quota increases are Georges Bank cod, Gulf of Maine cod, Gulf of Maine haddock and pollock.

The biggest percentage increases all were in the Gulf of Maine, where haddock has been nearly tripled to 8,738 tons, and pollock doubled to 37,400 tons.

Cod was increased 156 percent on Georges Bank and 39 percent in the Gulf of Maine, both signs of improving health of the cod stock.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

New Bedford seafood manager pleads guilty to tax charges

November 29, 2017 — BOSTON — A New Bedford seafood manager pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston on Tuesday to failing to report earnings on his tax returns.

Orlando Cardoso, 44, pleaded guilty to two counts of filing a false income tax return. Sentencing is scheduled for March 8, 2018. The indictment said that Cardoso was a manager of the scallop division of a New Bedford seafood processor, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In 2012 and 2013, Cardoso said his only income was from his employer. However, the Department of Justice said Cardoso had received more $75,000 in cash and checks from his employer’s supplier and failed to report the income on his tax returns.

The charge of filing a false income tax return provides for a sentence of no greater than three years in prison, one year of supervised release and a fine of $100,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, authorities said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times