More scallop goodness

There are more scallops in the water, over two other sites!  Marsden Brewer - long a leader in spat collecting, stock enhancement, and attempts to get a smoother permitting system - is now squared away with a site off his home port of Stonington.  Also, in a collaboration between fishing and farming, Evan Young (Blue Hill Bay Mussels) and Andy Mays (F/V Lost Airmen) have got some of the spat that Andy caught in the Blue Hill Salt Pond, where Evan has part of his shellfish operation. Bravo! to all involved.  It's been really nice, and an interesting process, to get the views from both the commercial fishermen and the aquaculturists; these groups of course do not always agree, but when starting from the grass roots, it sure seems like there are ways to make this process of integration move forward with a minimum of intrusion to either. 

So, temp data loggers are in place, juveniles are in cages and presumably growing happily, and now it's a bit of wait-and-see until later in the summer, when we will hopefully get to start thinking about biotoxin testing.  If all goes well, this project will run at least through the end of next year, when some of the scallops ought to be ready to get the once over by chefs and the like - assuming that our biotoxin testing reveals levels within regulatory bounds. 

Marsden Brewer, F/V Lindsay Marie, hauling one of the scallop cages for inspection. Eventually, either a different cage or more probably a mast-and-boom arrangement will be needed, but for now, he can service the gear with the pot hauler and a little extra help (thanks Bob!)

Andy Mays (left) and Evan Young - not a great shot, but here we are on the edge of the salt pond, transferring juveniles from spat collectors into the nursery cages. 

Andy Mays, a longtime lobsterman and scallop diver - and now a proven whiz at fishing for scallop spat - with some of the beauties he's caught.

Before too long, I hope to post the results of a media visit that happened a couple of weeks ago, which covered a range of topics from scallop aquaculture specifically, to the integration of fishing and farming.  More to follow on that account, but for now it's comforting to know that the little scallops are becoming bigger scallops, and that we've got this process moving.