Tag Archives: low wholesale prices
Flaws in Catch-Share System Frustrate Scallopers
Every year, regulators set a maximum number of pounds of scallops the entire small-boat fleet is allowed to catch. Each vessel owns or leases a share of that total, which determines how many pounds of scallops it can land that year. That share is called quota. Owning or leasing one percent in quota, for example, allows a vessel to take one percent of the total regulators set. Scallopers say the major flaw in this so-called catch-share system, which is also used in a handful of other federal fisheries, is that it requires them to pay huge fees every year to lease quota. It’s an expensive extra cost, they argue, that makes it especially hard to get into the business. “It’s a failed system,” said Damian Parkington of Wellfleet, owner of the F/V Roen Keil, “and it’s done a number on small business in coastal communities.” >click to read< 21:45
The Cape’s Scallopers Ride Out a Perfect Storm
This summer, a perfect storm combining sky-high fuel costs, a scarcity of experienced crew members, low wholesale prices, sharp declines in what scallop fishermen are allowed to take, and costly quota, has been keeping Cape Cod’s small-boat scallopers off the water. “There are a quite a few changing over to do other kinds of fishing because they can’t afford to go scalloping right now,” said Max Nolan, a scalloper from Eastham who owns the F/V Outlaw. “I don’t know how anyone is making it,” said Chris Merl, a Wellfleet scalloper and captain of the F/V Isabel & Lilee. Atlantic scalloping, which stretches from the waters of Maine to North Carolina, is one of the most lucrative fisheries in the nation, with its yearly catch valued at upwards of $500 million. But this year (the fishing year begins in April and ends in March), regulators have dropped the total amount of scallops boats are allowed to harvest to its lowest level in over a decade, and the limit stands at just 41 percent of what it was in 2019. >click to read< 08:55
