February 9, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — “Sea scallops have a high vulnerability ranking,” reads a Feb. 3 announcement from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which operates in Woods Hole under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Negative impacts are estimated for many of the iconic species in the ecosystem including Atlantic sea scallop, Atlantic cod and Atlantic mackerel.”
The NOAA study, formally known as the Northeast Climate Vulnerability Assessment, said Atlantic sea scallops have “limited mobility and high sensitivity to the ocean acidification that will be more pronounced as water temperatures warm.”
Water temperatures in Buzzards Bay have risen 4 degrees over the past two decades, for example, according to a recent study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Buzzards Bay Coalition.
Scallops are vital to New Bedford’s fishing industry. NOAA Fisheries announced last October that New Bedford, for the 15th year in a row, was the No. 1 port in the country in terms of dollar value of its catch. Much of that value, which totaled $329 million in 2014, comes from scallops.
The money has big local impacts. Eastern Fisheries captain Christopher Audette, for example, told visitors at an annual buyers’ tour in March 2014 that deck hands on his scallop boat had taken home more than $200,000 in 2013 — and that he had made even more than that.
Harbor Development Commissioner Richard Canastra, who has been instrumental to the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction since 1984, said this week that the scallop industry — and stock — continues to boom in New Bedford.
“The biomass has been increasing over the last 10 years, and there is no sign of it depleting because of the warmer waters,” Canastra said. “They’re talking a few degrees, and that’s not going to make much of a difference in terms of scallop population.”
Chad McGuire, associate professor of environmental policy at UMass Dartmouth, said that while the NOAA findings are not a surprise, they could be another “warning signal” for the industry.
“This study suggests that if you care about one of the largest economic drivers for this region, then you need to care about climate change,” said McGuire, whose work includes fishery management and climate change issues.
“We should be worried that this could greatly affect how many scallops we’re taking in the future,” he added.