The Fishery for Iceland Scallop (Chlamys islandica) in the Northeast Atlantic

This review,focuses on the history and management of the Iceland scallop fishery in Iceland, Greenland and Norway (including the Svalbard archipelago and the islands of Bjornoya and Jan Mayen), with information on research into each stock. The start of the fishery in all these regions followed the discovery of virgin scallop beds made tip of old, large specimens in very high densities. Despite the apparent similarity of original conditions, the fishery has followed very different trends in each region, with drastic declines in Iceland, Svalbard and Jan Mayen. The general biology of the Iceland scallop is summarised and compared with the biology of other North Atlantic species of pectinids. The Icelandic fishery dates from 1969. There was a steady decrease in catch from 1985, when > 16,000 tonnes were caught. By 2004 the stock had declined to 35% of its average size during the period 1993-2000 and a zero quota was advised. This decline is thought to have resulted from overexploitation, cornbined with a protozoan infestation and increasing sea bottom temperature. Scallop dredging commenced in west Greenland in 1983. The stock is not very large, but fishing was driven by social factors. Catches ranged from 400 to 1900 tonnes during the period 1988-1992 and from 1200 to 2600 tonnes since 1995. There are indications that each scallop bed is extensively dredged before the fleet moves on to new areas, but nevertheless catches have been rather stable over the past decade. The scallop stocks in Svalbard, Bjornoya and Jan Mayen were depleted in three fishing seasons between 1985-1987, when up to 45,000 tonnes of scallops were dredged in a single season. Following a survey carried out in 1991, Bjornoya was open to the fishery with a maximum quota of 2000 tonnes, but the stock off Svalbard was found to be not large enough to sustain a fishery.