Figure 7. — Juvenile calico scallops swimming in aquarium. 



obsei-\'ed to swim to about 46 cm off the bottom 

 and then resettle about 30 cm away (Cummins, 

 see footnote 6). 



Calico scallops are often found in depressions 

 on the sea bottom, as suggested by Rivers 

 (1962a). Video tapes of the bottom off Cape 

 Kennedy produced by RUFAS show that gen- 

 erally, scallops (size not given) were in furrows 

 that run in a northwest-southeast direction or 

 "settled individually in small conical depres- 

 sions" (Commercial Fisheries Review, 1970). 



FISHERY 



General 



The locations of the calico scallop fishing 

 grounds off North Carolina and the Florida east 

 coast and in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico are 

 shown in Figure 8. Production and value of cal- 



ico scallops for these areas are given in Table 1. 

 Scallops landed in Georgia were caught off the 

 Florida east coast. 



The commercial production of calico scallops 

 remains relatively low and fluctuates markedly 

 in all three fishing areas. This condition is ap- 

 parently caused by yearly variations in location 

 and productivity of scallop beds compounded by 

 problems of sorting, shucking, and eviscei'ating 

 scallops (National Marine Fisheries Service, see 

 footnote 7). The size and shape of the calico 

 scallop generally prevent economical shucking 

 by hand (Commercial Fisheries Review, 1960); 

 and there is only one locality (near Cape Look- 

 out, N.C.) where hand-shucking was feasible for 

 an extended period (Cummins, 1971). This has 

 led to the development and use of shore-based 

 processing equipment that automatically shucks 

 and eviscerates scallops, and to factory-type scal- 

 lop vessels (Fig. 9) with machinery to sort the 



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