Hurrah ! It's scallop season again, straight from the sea in front of us.
Commercial fishing is strongly regulated by the fishermen themselves in order to preserve the stocks. There are seasons quota and the licensed fishermen can only fish two days a week and a couple of hours each time on a very limited zone, the start and finish times being indicated by a gunshot. Monitoring is done by helicopters and speedboats, and the punishment for the slightest offence is two years of license suspension.
If you look carefully to the picture, you will see some shells attached to some of the scallops. These shells came from North America to the Normandy beaches with the Allied Forces landings, probably stuck to the bottom of a boat. They have multiplied like hell and have become a direct competitor for the scallop stocks, as they share the same habitat and the same foodchain.
Yummo, love scallops. Good to hear about the self-regulation, very interesting. We get a lot of abalone and crayfish (lobster) poaching in Aussie waters. Not to mention illegal fishing vessels from some of our Pacific neighbours, close and not-so-close.
Love the photo. I hope you can save the scallops. We use to have abalone, but haven’t seen it at all for more than 30 years. Entire population is gone.
