When the 2010-2011 commercial scalloping season came to a close March 31, the catch was not what fishermen hoped it would be, but nonetheless better than expected.
Island scallopers hauled in just over 6,916 bushels of the succulent shellfish between Nov. 1, 2010 and the end of March, a far cry from the 18,116 bushels harvested the previous season, but better than early predictions following a dismal recreational scalloping season.
Nantucket’s bay scallop industry has been considered for over two decades to be the last commercially-viable bay scallop fishery in the world, but it is never easy to predict what a season will be like.
A series of surveys conducted through the fall by Dr. Robert Kennedy of the Maria Mitchell Association examined the island’s bay scallop population and concluded, from a scientific point of view, that there weren’t as many scallops on the ocean floor as there had been in the past.
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