Maine Scallop Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
January 22, 2009
Natural Resource Service Center, Hallowell
Attendance
SAC:
Dana Temple
Tim Harper
Barry Huckins
Doug Wood
Ernest Kelley Jr.
Dana Morse
Dave Sinclair
Kevin Kelly (DMR)
Dana Morse
DMR:
Linda Mercer
Kohl Kanwit
Deirdre Gilbert
David Etnier
Togue Brawn
Col. Joe Fessenden
Public:
Maurice Alley
Mark Ausplund
John Higgins
Jimmy Ackely
Bruce Porter
Ted Ames
David Etnier spoke: Last week, we held an internal meeting of DMR staff to review what we have for information regarding the first half of the season. This included input throughout the season from marine patrol, fishermen, and port sampling. All the indicators that we have point toward the fishery having been even more depleted that folks might have otherwise believed. Based on that DMR is moving forward with emergency rule-making to prevent the second half of the season from taking place. Survey data suggests we have only very small, localized spots of scallops. Things weren’t good in Cobscook – we had been prepared to act (to shut down fishery in Cobscook) if effort was too high, but that didn’t seem to be an issue because the effort wasn’t there. It is not an easy decision to move forward with emergency rule-making, but we feel that it is warranted. We do intend to open up next December, if we can accomplish area management goals for the coming season.
Acceptance of minutes:
Dave Sinclair motion
Barry Huckins seconded
Unanimous approval of minutes
Linda Mercer reviewed the graphs provided (port sampling data, landings data, survey information).
Since 2001, landings have been incredibly low. Even though this is only reported landings, the trends are indicative of what has happened. A bad signal.
Have been doing the drag survey since 2002-2003 and have been doing port sampling for the past two years. In 2007/2008 – most boats were getting their limit for the entire first month. This season, it only lasted a week. Reports from marine patrol are that things were not good in Cobscook.
Resource assessment review: this year, things did not look good on eastern half of the coast where the survey was conducted. Significant drops have taken place throughout the state, everywhere, except for slight increase in E. Penobscot and W. Blue Hill Bays. There is a need to protect seed.
Comments or questions from the Council:
Dave Sinclair – Is it the stock assessment that will inform when to open the fishery again?
DMR: We intend to open up in December 2009, if we can get area management set up, and closures in place. The lack of closures is one reason we needed to do this – the entire stock is at risk.
Dana – To recap what happened at the November DMR Advisory Council meeting, the area closures failed. That was a significant part of the plan, and without it, we had no protection.
Junior – Would DMR have left the second half of the season in place, if the closures had occurred?
David – Yes, probably…that would have been some insurance. Without that, we don’t think it’s responsible to go on.
Doug – You’re blaming it on overfishing by fishermen, but that is not proven. It could be drastic predation by crabs. We have the most crabs we have ever seen. You could have the closures and still not have a recovery. We have closed areas – not accessible by drags – the salmon pens. They haven’t recovered there.
Togue – I’m sure that there are multiple factors, but fishing has an impact and it is one thing that we can control. Predators have an impact, but we don’t have the means to kill everything that eats scallops. Closed areas have been shown to have a beneficial effect elsewhere. Look at the survey results – what we are doing right now is not working. This seems to be the best, most realistic way to bring the resource back.
Dana – I hope, for the industry’s sake, that it is not solely a predation problem.
Doug – In the federal closed areas where scallops are coming back there are no crabs. Fishing could only be 1% of the problem.
4 inch rings:
Dana explained the results of his study –
Lost 3% of the legal size scallops, but kept a lot (25%) of the sublegals out.
Maurice – it makes a difference what the bottom type is that you are dragging
Barry – I stayed urchining this year. My son was getting 25% more broken shells because they kept dragging over the same bottom.
John Higgins: Understand the rings and how drags work. Scallops fall out of the bag opportunistically. The day that you understand it’s not the rings doing the culling, but the spaces between the rings. If you had the rings do the culling, then you can have this conversation.
Joe – Gear configuration – we limit the links on the rings, because we want to close them up. We’re following the lead of the feds.
Doug – NMFS has a stack of research on the rings – they’ve already done a lot of the legwork.
Togue – The Feds have a lot of research proving effectiveness of 4” rings, the criticism has been those waters are different than Maine state waters, which is why we have turned more toward to Dana’s study.
Joe – On the subject of closed areas, where we have the biggest problem with poachers is closed areas – Swan’s island is a perfect example. I have seen that areas that are not being harvested are places where scallops rebuild.
Maurice – why did you go with the 4 inch rings and the days? If DMR had listened to us 10-15 years ago, they would have taken a hold of it. Didn’t impact the divers.
Cecil – spent a lot of $ - $70,000 - to get rigged up to go. You can’t tell me now I can’t go.
Togue – This is not a decision that we arrived at lightly – these measures are always going to be difficult. Hopefully 5 years from now everyone will think this was a good decision because there will be a long-term sustainable fishery.
Cecil – You’re just leaving them for the starfish.
Maurice – Why did DMR do nothing for so long, and then throw all of this at us? Can’t pay bills on 12-15 days of working in December.
David – You are right that no one – DMR or industry or the Legislature – took action in time. But it’s highly irresponsible to look the other way and let people make a living today at the price of never having a decent fishery in the future. We need to consider the people who are not even in the room right now.
John Higgins – I agree with every word. We shouldn’t be trying to place blame. But I’m very upset to see the goal of closing 1/3 of the areas – it’s too much of a random goal. I’ve been talking to communities and urging them to consider enforceability. Agree with everything that David said, am bothered by the 1/3 goal. In Jonesport, may work out that 1/5 is perfect and will do the job.
Predators – scallops are tough and hardy, and towing will get rid of a lot of predators. Also agree with what Joe said. The swan’s island area was just so productive, it didn’t matter that a few people went in every once in a while – they still recovered.
Agreement to remove the 1/3 goal.
Doug Wood – I would like to bring up 4 inch rings and restrictions on divers. Togue will add to a future agenda.
Jim Ackley – I drag urchins and where I drag, I’ve been seeing more seed than I have seen in 2-3 years, and it’s places where you can’t tow a scallop drag. A cable area is closed to a dragger and not to a diver – shouldn’t it be closed to everyone? In the future, these closures we will be discussing will be closed to everyone. Swan’s Island cable area was designed to protect the cable – not because of benefits to the scallop resource.
David described the DMR bill to increase penalties for harvesting scallops in a conservation area.
Junior – did DMR start thinking about this when the DMR advisory council didn’t pass the closed areas?
No – we started thinking about it when the season started and we started to get reports from multiple sources that it looked like things were very bad.
Doug – We basically haven’t had a scallop season, other than in Cobscook.
Danielle – distributed copies of her presentation, gave her report on enhancement research worldwide, potential applications to Maine.
Doug – Where they’ve been successful aquaculturing scallops - is it the same species?
Danielle – No, because of the long time it takes to bring it to marketable size. Other species can be ready in a couple of years, or even less than a year.
Dana – That answer is specific to trying to raise to marketable size, but that’s not exactly what we’re trying to do – spat collection or bringing scallops in from offshore still has potential.
Doug – What about diseases? We think there are diseases out there, blue meats, clappers, could these have affected the fishery more than we realize?
Danielle – One paper did not find the diseases to be credible threats, but need to know what you are testing for.
Ted – We had a delegation from Pectin Ltd. come down and discuss their restocking method. They said, we have so much spat, we’d be better of to just protect areas and let them come back on their own. They said we didn’t have a problem, enough spat to take care of it.
John – remember that 2 of the highest collecting bags were bags that broke away, and had not much following, because drifting with the current, rather than the current passing through it.
Danielle – no papers on drifting bags
Maurice – You say there’s no going back on 4 inch rings…but we are focusing on catching the broodstock. The lobster fishery leaves the small and the big – wouldn’t that work?
Togue: Not a lot of research has been done on it, and the market has wanted the larger scallops.
Dana – The work that Danielle did was helpful and useful, so thank you. Lots of questions there that could become research projects that will help us to get where we want to be.
Doug – We have the spat in the water, but when it hits bottom it’s gone – what’s happening? Is it a predator issue, or other issue? GMRI is looking at this question. Seems like we have enough spat – there’s an issue after the spat.
Ted – A great way to start off a closed area would be for local fishermen to collect and dump a bunch of scallops in the closed area, because they are proximity spawners.
Dana – There is a big question still out there requiring intensive study as to where the scallops go after they are put on the bottom – do they move, or do they get eaten, or what?
Dana Temple – when we put bags in the water, you get a much higher survival rate because they can collect in the bag. Need to get the spat in large scale, get them larger, and increase survivability.
Doug – We have enough spat, just not settling.
Dana T – We have a proportional amount of spat to those who are spawning.
Dana T – use the time between this meeting and the next one to discuss potential areas and closed areas and get into serious conversation next time
Togue – Next meeting, design management areas, and then get input from local fishermen regarding closed areas.
Jim – Concerning zones - are you going to have fishermen representing zones to bring information forward? Get a few fishermen from each area who can talk to their people. They can bring it to the SAC and hash it over.
Dana T – That’s exactly what we are hoping you will do.
Jim Ackley – We need to know that you will listen to that input.
David – We need to figure out how to incorporate local input and involvement into the SAC.
Jim – Logbooks implemented this year will help tremendously. If we don’t provide that information, it will look like landings are down again, and then the season may be impacted again.
John – As far as the fishermen’s forum – come with a message, because that’s where you get 110 different thoughts from 100 different people. Need to report on what has been done. Get the work of finding the areas to close down done in advance – fishermen to fishermen.
Togue – Should we try to figure out the management areas before the forum?
Doug – the sooner the better.
Ted – We’ve been struggling with this and the fishermen we’ve been working with said there are too many lines in the water. Just use the lobster zones. Then the fishermen in the area make the closed areas. That way everyone is working on the same boundaries that everyone knows already.
Togue – Zone A is too large, would need to be subdivided.
Maurice – Zone A is too big, it should be split. Point of Maine to Schoodic point.
Dana T needs to leave….
Decision : We will begin to draw lines at the next meeting
Friday the 13th – morning start?
David Sinclair made a motion to adjourn
Barry seconded
Unanimous.
