Scallops were once plentiful in the seaside bays off Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
In 1930, Virginia supported the nation’s most productive bay scallop fishery, harvesting the iconic creatures that are smaller and taste sweeter than their ocean-dwelling counterparts.
But just a few years later, bay scallops became extinct in Virginia. A wasting disease caused by slime mold devastated the eelgrass beds that the critters need to live, and a hurricane in 1933 wiped out the rest.
Due to dogged restoration efforts by William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science over the past 15 years, scientists now say bay scallops are rebounding off the Eastern Shore.
Richard Snyder, a professor at VIMS and director of its Eastern Shore Lab, said they’re approaching population levels considered viable to sustainably harvest the species.
“The goal would be to have a recreational harvest and maybe even a commercial harvest,” Snyder said. “But also just the idea that this iconic species is back into the landscape.”
It hasn't always been a smooth road to recovery.
The restoration goes back about 25 years, when scientists at VIMS launched an effort to bring back eelgrass off the Eastern Shore.
The seaside bays there – fed by the Atlantic Ocean, not the Chesapeake Bay — are fairly isolated, making it hard for species to recolonize on their own, Snyder said.
VIMS’ seagrass restoration is now considered one of the world's most successful, with underwater meadows covering more than 10,000 acres.
In 2009, the scientists started working on the bay scallop population as well. VIMS brought up scallops from North Carolina and started raising some at a research hatchery and releasing them into the water.
Snyder said when he arrived in 2015, “the population was very low.”
They were “getting pretty nervous about the low levels that were out there, and that they just didn't seem to be successful,” he said.
The group tried bringing in scallops from other places to boost genetic diversity. And over the past five years, the population has been “expanding exponentially.”
Snyder said it’s unclear whether that’s because of the diversity efforts, or “if it just took them that long to take off.”
It helps that the area has excellent water quality, largely because the barrier islands are not developed and thus don’t produce much pollution.
Each July, VIMS conducts a survey of the bay scallop population at 320 sites. Volunteers don snorkels and feel through the seagrass by hand to find the critters.
VIMS’ most recent survey shows the density of bay scallops in the area is about 0.07 per square meter. That’s just shy of the minimum density the state of Florida uses as a benchmark for its recreational fishery.
However, Snyder said there’s no guarantee the growth will continue. Scallops have a short lifespan of about a year and half, meaning a bad reproductive year could easily lead to dramatic declines.
In the meantime, the institute has also been working with local aquaculture farmers to grow bay scallops in a different way.
A company called Baywater Seafood has already started selling some – marketing the entire scallop as a product rather than just its adductor muscle, which is usually what’s sought after for eating.
Snyder said the future of Virginia’s bay scallop industry will likely lean on aquaculture in addition to harvesting them in the wild.
He thinks bay scallops are tastier than sea scallops and go great with linguine pasta, especially soaking up garlic butter.
He hopes Virginians will be able to try them soon.
