NOAA-98 R117

Contact: Teri Frady              FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                 3/30/98

Gloucester, Mass. -- Citing very low sea scallop numbers, federal fishery managers today announced two area closures off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Officials say that the two closures, one off Virginia and one off New Jersey, leave significant fishing grounds open while protecting relatively high concentrations of small sea scallops. The closures begin April 3 and are in effect for 180 days with possible extension for another 180 days.

The closures were requested by two regional federal fishery management councils. The measures are expected to reduce sea scallop mortality caused by fishing and to improve chances that the small scallops in the areas will grow to fishable size in the near future.

The move is also intended to avert immediate further reductions in the number of days scallopers can fish, and to buy time for managers to devise a longer term plan to address continued overfishing of the resource throughout its range.

"We think these closures will have short-term positive benefits for the resource and reduce fishing mortality," says NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Andy Rosenberg. "However," he cautions, "this action alone will not solve our problems. Scallop fishers and managers still have to make some tough decisions in order to end overfishing and rebuild the resource."

As a whole, the Northeast sea scallop resource is at a low level with the fishery depending heavily on scallops just reaching the size for harvest. The New England Fishery Management Council has lead responsibility for developing sea scallop management plans in the Northeast, and the Mid-Atlantic Council monitors and comments on scallop actions.

The New England Council recently declined to further reduce overfishing by reducing days at sea allotted to scallop vessels, primarily because of the immediate and significant economic hardship that would cause. Instead, both councils asked NOAA Fisheries to take this short-term action to address overfishing of scallop resources while they work toward a longer-term solution.

The councils specified the Virginia closure area, and asked NOAA Fisheries to select an additional area south of Hudson Canyon. Both areas are historically important both for harvest and for sea scallop growth and survival. While fishing in the Virginia area has been intense in recent years, fishing in the Hudson's Canyon area has not been, probably because of the prevalence of small scallops there. The areas will be closed to scalloping only, minimizing effects on other fisheries. Vessel transit, under specific conditions, is allowed.

BACKGROUND

• Both Mid-Atlantic and Georges Bank sea scallop stocks are overfished and managed under a recovery plan.

• Mid-Atlantic sea scallop concentrations are at their lowest levels since 1979.

• Some rebuilding is occurring on George Bank in three areas closed to both groundfishing and scalloping since 1994 (Map, Areas 1, 2, and Nantucket Lightship, about 6550 square miles in all). Sea scallop survival rates inside these closed areas have improved. The overall moderate level of abundance on the Bank is wholly attributable to high concentrations in the closed areas offsetting the very low concentrations in the open areas.

• Fishing effort in the Virginia closure area (about 560 square miles, Map) has been high in recent years. There is also a known concentration of small sea scallops there, which will soon reach harvestable size if allowed a little more time to grow.

• The Hudson Canyon area (about 1958 square miles, Map) has not been heavily fished, it typically supports good growth and survival for sea scallops and presently contains a high proportion of smaller sea scallops.

• The sea scallop fishery in general depends heavily on scallops just reaching harvestable size.

• The 1997 review of progress under the sea scallop recovery plan indicated that fishing mortality needed to be reduced further to reach the plan's goal of ending overfishing on a seven-year schedule. Fishing mortality is primarily controlled under the plan by adjusting the number of days a scalloper is allowed to fish.

• The New England Fishery Management Council decided not to further reduce days at sea but rather asked NMFS to implement the interim closures they recommended while a longer term plan is developed.

• The New England Fishery Management Council is presently considering a number of measures to stop sea scallop overfishing in the longer term and rebuild the stocks. Among them are continued controls on days fished, area closure schemes, allowing days at sea to be leased, adding an abbreviated method for closing and opening areas, and allowing scallop dredges into the George Bank closed areas if they can be configured in such a way that they don't undermine groundfish recovery measures.

Note to Reporters: A map specifying the area closures is available on the fisheries service's Northeast Region website http://www.nero.nmfs.gov/compare.jpg