Maine's $7.46 Million Scallop Harvest is Second Most Valuable Haul in Three Decades
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Bangor Daily News] March 30, 2015
In the mid-2000s, when Maine’s scallop fishery hit historic lows for volume and value, its future did not look promising.
But thanks to unusually high prices that fishermen have earned for their scallops in the past several years, the fishery looks a lot different now.
Annual catch totals still may lag behind what they were in past decades, but according to data compiled by Maine Department of Marine Resources, 2014 was one of the most lucrative years the state fishery has ever had.
The volume of the yearly statewide harvest of scallop meat increased by 78,335 pounds to 584,000 pounds last year, and because fishermen averaged a record high price of $12.78 per pound for their catch, they had a cumulative gross income of $7.46 million. That is the sixth-highest annual value for the fishery in the past 65 years and the second highest in the past 30 years, according to DMR statistics...
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