BLUE HILL, Maine — Citing a high number of boats in the area on the first day it was open, the Maine Department of Marine Resources has decided to close the inner harbor in Blue Hill to scallop fishing for the remainder of the season.
The emergency closure, which includes part of an area in the northern reaches of Blue Hill Bay that is accessible this year on a limited basis, goes into effect on Monday, Dec. 10.
Between February 2009 and the end of this past March, the upper end of the bay between Carter Point in Blue Hill Falls and the tip of Newbury Neck in Surry has been closed to scallop fishing. Last week, it reopened for the first time in more than three years as one of several limited access areas along the coast, in which scallop fishing is permitted fewer days per week than regular open fishing areas.
The closures over the past four years have been intended to help the population of scallops near shore recover from overfishing. The annual harvest of scallops in Maine peaked at 3.8 million pounds of meat in 1981 but since then has declined to less than 200,000 pounds per year.
Trisha DeGraaf, resource coordinator for DMR, indicated Friday in an emailed announcement of the emergency closure that when the scallop season opened last week, a “large component” of 60 licensed scallop vessels showed up in Blue Hill Bay to target a large scallop bed in the bay. When the limited access area opened on Dec. 3, 30 vessels crammed their way into the inner harbor to fish.
“This area was heavily fished by these vessels, resulting in its immediate depletion, with many vessels having to move out of the harbor to either the remaining portion of the Blue Hill Bay limited access area or even out of the limited access area entirely to the adjacent open areas to meet their daily limit of 20 gallons of meats,” DeGraaf wrote in the email.
Because of concern that such a concentrated, heavy fishing effort could result in “unusual damage” to scallops smaller than the minimum harvest size of four inches, DMR has decided to close the inner harbor for the rest of the scallop season, which runs until March 20. Scallop fishing will not be allowed in the harbor west of a line between Sculpin point and Parker Point, according to DeGraaf.
Late last winter, DMR considered an immediate closure of an adjacent area of Blue Hill Bay after a large number of fishing vessels showed up and several were cited by Marine Patrol for harvesting undersized scallops. The department decided against an early closure in the bay last March because the 2011-2012 season was almost over.
DMR also announced some other emergency changes and clarifications to this winter’s scallop and urchin seasons. The department clarified that the daily catch limit throughout the state is 20 gallons of harvested scallop meats or 30 bushels of aggregated meat and shellstock. It also clarified that fishermen are not allowed to make more than one fishing trip per day or to transfer any part of their catch from one vessel to another.
In the urchin fishery, DMR adopted an emergency rule on Friday that limits fishermen in Whiting and Dennys bays in Washington County to harvesting 10 stackable totes of urchins per day.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
I’ve often had an arguement that fishermen and farmers should not be the ones left to care for the land or the sea. I think this proves my point. They will deplete a resource rather than care for it. It’s obviously not true of all fishermen or farmers but far too many of them look at the profit today rather than sustainability of the industry.
Yeah, politicians know what’s best for us…………. just get enuff lobsters and scallops for the politicians to have on their taxpayer funded study sessions
Well you must admit the lobster industry is and has been very sustainable for a long time and continues to be sustainable. Would you rather the lobstermen regulate it like they have the rest of the fisheries. Even now with halibut and cod on their last legs, they still want to go out and kill off the rest of them.
I agree with you, today it’s about how much money can I make, and I don’t care who I crush to do it.
Thanks to government regulations requested by Maine lobster catchers, there seems to be no shortage of Maine lobsters. Because the lobster industry is very closely regulated, lobstering is a sustainable industry and plenty of lobsters are likely to be around providing incomes to Maine families for a long time.
Oh, fishing? You might remember reading that during WW II when fishing was curtailed off the Irish coast by German submarines, the fish came back.
The lobster industry is doing very well, thank you, and if you can think of any industry in Maine that is more closely controlled by the government will you please tell me what it is?
The humble Farmer
You pick one industry that has been controlled for a lot longer than I’ve been alive. I believe the regulations started sometime in the 1930’s and I’m not convinced it was at the behest of lobsterman but merely necessity.
It is in fact, government regulation, which is my main point to start with, that will salvage the fishing and agricultural industry in this state, assuming they are salvagable, not the fisherman or farmers themselves. The lobster industry simply proves my point.
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I won’t make that distinction. I’ve seen too many generational farms in the north of this state where the land was destroyed by the failure of good practices, of huge amounts of topsoil simply flushed out to sea, of rivers polluted by chemical runoff. Yes there are some farmers who do care for the land but I’m afraid they are few and far between.
Unfortunately this is true in most industries, hence the horrible environmental and economic issues we face today around the world. I have an older friend from Newfoundland who can still remember when his neighbors could make a living from the sea but the unfettered fishing industry fished the local seas dead. 40 years later they are still dead. There are a great many other examples in other industries where greed and need refuse to look to the future. In fact, even when squarely faced with the dire reality of global warming we are still not willing to buck up and deal with the problem. Very sad. A shameful testament to human nature. I can still recall the petroleum and vehicle industry fight against improved gas milage requirements with lowered emissions back in the 70’s. All the nay-sayers claimed these regulations would kill the auto industry. Guess they were wrong. Meanwhile our air is much much cleaner and cars go much further on a gallon of gas. These same industries, along with the energy industry, are still fighting against such improvements today! Oh but lets add the coal industry which is lobbying for deregulation. Good grief!
I live in Stonington, a working fishing village, and I don’t agree at all, All of our fisheries are self regulated, even clamming.by which I mean the fishery practices and obeys what is required to conserve the fishery.,Clammers for a mere $1.25/lb for the best clams ever also seed new beds every year and you’ll never see a clam in a had carried basket that is too small.
Our fishery has taken many huge hits since 2008 in markets and in gear regulations that have pushed some completely out of business. I can understand a rush to a known source of scallops, a high end fish with a short season, especially just before chirstmas..winters are long here..no cash coming in.
The state has been a bit lax in rebuilding the scallop industry..in building a framework based on something more than closures and regulation of fishing days and license limitation. Our scallops could be as famous as our lobsters with a little more support for rebuilding wild beds. What happened in Blue Hill Bay is understandable given the tough few years the working waterfront has had and it refelecst as much on poor management of the scallop fishery.
And it completely proves my point that it cannot be left to those in the field to care for the fisheries, it must be regulated. It is interesting though that so many fisherman that I talk to vote republican yet want the state to rebuild the various industries, including the scallop industry. It really is up to the fisherman but they won’t/can’t do it. You say they do what is required to conserve the industry. Tell that to the scallops, the halibut, the cod, the salmon. Live today and well if the fish aren’t there tomorrow too bad.
More news to follow. This new “management” plan is designed to fail. Now all the boats will move to the next zone and trigger the next closure, and so on until befor New year the DMR will be collecting their payroll and we will all be promised a better way to manage the industry next year.
Why bother to have 3 zones with very different management tools if the fleet is left to shift to the next best area. Even us dumb old fisherman knew that was a poor idea!
The issue is, the state had closed Blue Hill bay for to long. The feed for the scallops was getting depleted and most were dying. True fact, I seen it. As for the divers and draggers for Urchins in Cobbscook bay, remember the urchin meetings when a 10 box tote limit or day reduction was talked about?? Well, not only did you lose days because you all wanted to be greedy, you also got the tote limit other people wanted to begin with. That must sting a bit, but I am sure you will learn to live with the limits and prices offered for the roe. I am sorry to say this but next time change comes around for your benefit and the benefit of your fishery, try seeing your way clear to vote for the best option, A 10 box limit would have insured healthy Urchins for the future, and no loss of days. DMR, if only you implemented a way to report landings by the sellers and buyers I think you would see landings return to what they used to be.
Blue HIll bay was not close for too long. The scallop will thrive in that water because there is no lack of food for what they eat. Just look at the numbers of scallops that were there long before we started our harvest them til they no longer exist policy. We need to restrict the number of scallop fisherman, reduce the take and close areas until they revive in those areas. If that means some fisherman go out of business, so be it. It is far better for some to lose their business than for all to lose.
I am not disagreeing at all. However, I have seen this year ( last week as a matter of fact) dead scallops from the bay. Without restrictions on the fisheries there will always be problems. I would even like higher licensing fees, with the extra money supporting the accurate studies of the fisheries paid for.
The problem with fisheries today is that the people who no nothing about the industry are the ones making the rules for them. They are destroying the fisheries and scaring other fisherman into industries they normally wouldn’t do beacause they are afraid of losing licenses. But for scalloping season 2012-2013 the state let all the unused license holders join with the regular scallop draggers who had been struggling through these closures waiting for them to open, and most them have never dragged in a day in their life thought it would be easy money for them. I for one am not happy with the way things are being handled. If you don’t depend on this for a living I don’t feel your input should matter, period.
In my opinion, the problem with fisheries today is that the people who no nothing about the industry are the ones making the rules for them. They are destroying the fisheries & scaring other fisherman into industries they normally wouldn’t do because they are afraid of losing licenses. For the scalloping season 2012-2013 the state let all the unused license holders join with the regular scallop draggers who had been struggling through these closures waiting for them to open, and most of them have never dragged in a day in their life thought it would be easy money for them. I for one am not happy with the way things are being handled. If you don’t depend on this for a living I don’t feel your input should matter, period.