1999 

 OUR LIVING OCEANS 



'1995-97 average lincluding foreign landings) '^CPY and LTPY refers only to EEZ 



^Data for bivalve species are in shucked meat weights ''For sea scallops, US portion of RAY is 7,100 t (70% of total). 



^RAY includes landings from both inshore (state) and offshore (US EEZ) areas ''High fishing mortality No overfishing definition currently in place 



Landings 

 [x 1,000 tl 



Landings 



_!_, 



L±J 



lJ_i 



Maine 

 inshore 

 waters 

 index 



- 1 



- 09 



- 08 



- 07 



- 0.1 



- 02 



Figure 4-1 



Landings of American lob- 

 ster in the northeastern 

 United States, 1940-97 in 

 metric tons (t). The index 

 shows the average number 

 of legal-sized lobsters 

 caught per trap averaged 

 over a 24-hour period in 

 Maine inshore waters. 



1960 1970 



Year 



with a great majority ot ail lolistcrs landed not wt 

 sexuall\' inattirc. Fi.sliini; niortaliry rates for botli 

 insliore and oHsliorc poptilations greatly exceed 

 the rates that wotild provide maximum yields. 

 Recent average landings ot lobsters have been 

 32,300 t (Table 4-1 ), with landings in 1997 also 

 at that level (Figure 4-1), 



Sea Scallop 



Sea scallops are harvested on the continental 

 shell Ironi the Virginia ('apes to the "Hague Line," 



which separates the U.S. and Canadian portions 

 of Georges Bank, and in the Gult ot Maine. Ca- 

 nadian landings on Georges Bank represent a sig- 

 nificant part ot the total (Figure 4-2), i.e. 30% 

 (3,100 t) of the recent average yield (Table 4-1). 

 Sea scallops are harvested primarily using 

 epibenthic dredges in the Gult of Maine, Georges 

 Bank, and the Mid-Atlantic Bight. A small but 

 rapidly growing proportion ot the landings is taken 

 with otter trawls in the Mid-Atlantic Bight. 



Management ot the .sea scallop fishery by the 

 New England Fishery Management Council 

 changed markedly in 1994 as maximum meat 

 count regulations (numbers ot scallop meats per 

 pound) were eliminated. In their place, controls 

 on the number ot days at sea, reduced crew size, 

 and increased dredge inesh-ring si7.es were insti- 

 tuted. Also, the harvesting of sea scallops within 

 three areas in the Georges Bank and Nantucket 

 Shoals region, closed to ptotect depressed ground- 

 tish stocks, has been prohibited since December 

 1994. 



A comprehensive assessment completed in the 

 tall ot 1996 (Northeast Fisheries Science Center, 

 1 997a, b) indicated that sea scallops were overfished 

 both on Georges Bank and in the Mid-Atlantic 

 Bight and were at a low overall level ot abundance. 

 Reductions in days at sea and ciew size and an 

 increase in mesh-ring size have shown limited et- 

 tectiveness in preventing the resources from being 

 overfished. In contrast, the sea scallop biomass 



1 1 



