Combining Fishermen’s Knowledge with Economic Models to Locate and Evaluate Gray Meat Outbreaks in Atlantic Sea Scallops
Atlantic sea scallop fisheries in Iceland and the United States have been subject to outbreaks of ‘gray meat’, a disease caused by infestation by a new species of apicomplexan parasite that causes progressive myodegeneration of scallop meats that kills scallops and reduces recruitment. Due to reduce...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English unknown |
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North American Association of Fisheries Economists
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/conference_proceedings_or_journals/x346d557m |
| Summary: | Atlantic sea scallop fisheries in Iceland and the United States have been subject to outbreaks of ‘gray meat’, a disease caused by infestation by a new species of apicomplexan parasite that causes progressive myodegeneration of scallop meats that kills scallops and reduces recruitment. Due to reduced exvessel value, fishermen discard gray meats, and if possible, move to different fishing areas. Scallop biomass in Iceland dropped from 80% in 1999 to 10% in 2005 due to discards, natural mortality and recruitment failure attributed to gray meat infestation. Initial interviews with U.S. fishermen on the locations of gray meat outbreaks and daily monitoring of the scallop auction reveal that the condition persists in Georges Bank and the range of the infection appears to be large and increasing. This paper reports the spatial and temporal location of gray meats, and oceanographic conditions associated with gray meat infestations in the U.S. We also report the effects of gray meats on scallop exvessel price at the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction. We also examine the loss of biomass of scallops in the 2012 access fishery in Closed Area 1 due to gray meat infestation and discards of gray meat scallops, which led to the early closing of the access fishery after only about one half of allowed scallop trips had been taken. During this access fishery, the scallop biomass declined from 28 million pounds according to the SMAST video survey in 2011 to less than 10 million pounds in 2013. Keywords: Fisheries Economics, Temporal and Spatial Use, Bioeconomic Modeling |
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