History of the Bay Scallop, Argopecten irradians, Fisheries and Habitats in eastern North America, Massachusetts through northeastern Mexico

This is a broad historical overview of the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians, fishery on the East and Gulf Coasts ofNorth America (Fig. 1). For a little over a century, from about the mid 1870’s to the mid 1980’s, bay scallops supported large commercial fisheries mainly in the U.S. states of Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina and on smaller scales in the states in between and in western Florida. In these states, the annual harvests and dollar value of bay scallops were far smaller than those of the other important commercial mollusks, the eastern oysters, Crassostrea virginica, and northern quahogs, Mercenariamercenaria, but they were higher than those of softshell clams, Mya arenaria (Table 1). The fishery had considerable economic importance in the states’ coastal towns, because bay scallops are a high-value product and the fishery was active during the winter months when the economies in mosttowns were otherwise slow. The scallops also had cultural importance as a special food, an ornament owing to its pretty shell design, and an interesting biologicalcomponent of

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	MacKenzie, Jr. , Clyde L.
Format:	article biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	2008
Subjects:	Fisheries, Management,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/26309
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