King scallop

There is very little information about king scallop populations in the Irish Sea. Therefore, there is concern for both biomass and fishing pressure.This rating covers scallop stocks in the Irish Sea beyond of the territorial waters of Wales, Isle of Man (0-12 nautical miles) and Northern Ireland (0-6nm). There are no specific data for landings from this area. Scallop landings from the whole of area 7a (Irish Sea) peaked at 9,600 tonnes in 2012 and have since declined to around 4,000t in 2020.The are no stock assessments, although efforts are underway to develop one. Route 2 scoring has been applied to this rating owing to the lack of data. King scallops are considered to have high resilience to fishing pressure.It is thought that scallop stocks throughout the Irish Sea could be interconnected. It may be more appropriate to treat all of north Irish Sea scallops as one stock. Recent high fishing intensity in the Irish Sea is thought to be impacting the reproductive potential of the Isle of Man stocks.A survey of the south Irish Sea in 2019 indicated that there were very few small scallops, with 83% of the biomass being adults. This could indicate that reproduction rates have been poor in recent years, and the stock may therefore decline in the near future.There are very few management measures to control fishing outside of inshore and territorial waters. Based on the lack of data and management, there is concern for both the biomass and fishing pressure of Irish Sea scallops.

Few appropriate management measures are in place to control scallop fishing in the Irish Sea outside of territorial waters. There are currently no catch limits or controls to prevent overfishing.King scallop stocks throughout the Irish Sea could be interconnected, meaning a lack of appropriate management in one area could pose a threat to others.Management measures exist within the territorial waters of Wales, the Isle of Man (0-12nm), and Northern Ireland (0-6nm). These vary, but may include catch limits, effort limits, fishing gear restrictions, closed areas, and closed seasons.This rating is for the Irish Sea beyond those areas. As with most UK scallop fisheries, there is no quota or catch limit in place. There is currently no harvest strategy or management plan. There are no stock assessments to indicate whether the stock is healthy or able to withstand current fishing pressure. There are no restrictions on where fishing can happen, so there is nothing to protect habitats.At the time of writing (November 2023), a King Scallop Fishery Management Plan (FMP) is in development. It will be a joint plan between Wales (Welsh Government) and England (Defra), covering all stocks in English and Welsh waters. Until it is in force, it will not affect the rating for this fishery.The main management measures are a minimum landing size, a closed season, and some effort controls:A minimum conservation reference size (MCRS) of 110mm. Cefas indicates that scallops are mature at around 80mm, although growth rates vary. Therefore, juveniles are protected. However, it may not adequately protect the breeding stock because scallop reproductivity increases with size. Discards of below minimum size scallops take place, but a high survival rate is assumed and therefore this is not considered to have an impact on the stock.Within the 0-12nm zone, there is a limit of 16 dredges per boat. There is no limit beyond the 12nm zone.Vessels over 10m must have a UK scallop license. There is a limited number of these available. The licenses define what type of dredge can be used (up to 85cm wide and 150kg).Scallop dredging in the Irish Sea is banned from June-October.The Western Waters Effort Regime limits how many days large boats (over 15m) can spend dredging for scallops in ICES area 7 (English Channel, south-west England, and Irish Sea). In recent years, this has limited fishing effort by UK boats, but not French boats.Project UK is implementing Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) on twelve UK fisheries that are important to the UK market. This includes dredged scallops around the UK. The FIP began in 2019 and has an end date of April 2024, at which point it should be ready to undergo MSC certification.The FIP has been successful in tackling some issues, including improving understanding of stock boundaries, bycatch and habitat impacts. These outcomes are not inconsiderable. However, there has been very little change to how scallop fishing is carried out, and there is not enough in place to protect scallops from being overfished. For example, there is no harvest strategy that can respond to stock status by reducing fishing pressure when stocks decline. There also appears to have been no change in fishing practices to reduce bycatch or habitat impacts. Therefore, we do not consider the FIP to have addressed all key environmental issues in this fishery, and it does not meet GFG guidelines for application of a FIP Improver score.The annual FIP report from 2024 indicates that it currently is failing on harvest strategy and harvest control rules, which will prevent it from achieving certification. The FIP lists Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) as a delivery mechanism for improvements. The proposed FMP for king scallops in England and Wales does not include a harvest strategy, although it does include a proposal to develop one. An FMP in Northern Ireland is expected to be consulted on in 2024. There are no plans to develop a scallop FMP in Scotland. Given that the FIP will end in April 2024, and no FMPs will be delivering harvest strategies or control rules by that point, we do not consider it possible for this key issue to be addressed within the FIP timescale.More information is here and here.

Scallop dredging can be very damaging to seabed habitats and species. There are no controls on where dredging can happen in this area, and therefore vulnerable habitats and species may be at risk.Most Irish Sea scallop catches (around 98%, according to MMO data) are by dredging, with most other catches from trawling. The main environmental impact from dredging is its effect on the seabed. This impact varies depending on which habitats the dredging happens on (see below for more details).The offshore Irish Sea scallop beds are not well understood. Areas of intense dredging activity happen in the northeast, between the Isle of Man and Wales, and some areas between Wales and the island of Ireland. Seabed data from EMODnet indicates that the habitats in these dredged areas (vessels over 12m) are generally mixed sediment, coarse sediment, and mud. While there is some understanding of the footprint of the fishery and broad habitat types, detailed habitat data is not available. There is no data to indicate where vessels below 12m are fishing.Dredging is banned throughout the Irish Sea from June to October, so impacts on habitats are reduced to some extent. However, there are no restrictions on where dredging can happen. As a result, it is possible that vulnerable habitats are being affected by dredging in this fishery. Sub-surface disturbance in the area covered by this scallop fishery is very high. An analysis of the impacts of UK scallop dredging in 2021 concluded that fishery interactions were likely to cause up to a 10% change in the ecosystem, with the impact likely to take up to 20 years to recover. In the Celtic Sea, fishing-induced physical disturbance is estimated to have resulted in an overall decrease of invertebrate benthic biomass of approximately 5% in sandy habitats, but may be over 80% in the most heavily fished areas.An analysis of scallop dredge effort from 2016-2020 indicates that 30% of dredging effort took place in an area that now falls within South Rigg Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ). However, the MCZ was not designated until 2019. As the MPA was not designated for most of the period of analysis, this has not triggered application of MPA scoring for this rating. However, continued effort at the same level is likely to affect scoring in future.Given the important role that MPAs have in recovering the health and function of our seas, MCS encourages the supply chain to identify if their specific sources are being caught from within MPAs. If sources are suspected of coming from within designated and managed MPAs, MCS advises businesses to establish if the fishing activity is operating legally inside a designated and managed MPA, and request evidence from the fishery or managing authority to demonstrate that the activity is not damaging to protected features or a threat to the conservation objectives of the site(s).Bycatch by dredges may also be of concern. Non-quota species are allowed to be caught as bycatch in scallop fisheries, as long as they comprise less than 5% of the total catch. There is no available data on bycatch rates in this fishery. In general, commonly encountered species are brown crabs, starfish and sea urchins. There is concern for brown crabs in many areas throughout the UK. There may also be bycatch of flatfish, dogfish, skates and rays, cuttlefish, and monkfish. Species vary depending on location. However, most (around 75%) of the animals that scallop dredges interact with remain on the seafloor and are not recorded in bycatch reports. They are often damaged, and so there may be impacts on populations in the affected areas.About scallop dredging:A typical king scallop dredge, known as a Newhaven dredge, is a heavy steel frame with a chainmail net. There is a toothed bar at the front that penetrates the seabed, flipping the scallop into the net. Dredges are connected to a tow bar that travels over the seabed, and there can be up to 20 dredges per bar. The number of dredges and tow bars are limited by the engine power of the vessel, and by various legislation around the UK.On average, global studies estimate that scallop dredging penetrates seabeds by around 6cm, and can reduce community abundance and species richness by 8-12% per dredge pass. Recovery can take months or years, depending on the species affected. The impacts vary, depending on the type of seabed, the species that live there, and the level of natural disturbance from waves and storms. In more disturbed areas, the habitats and species may be faster growing and more easily able to recover. Sheltered and inshore areas are more likely to have slow-growing, delicate species, like maerl, seagrass, horse mussels and seafans. Sandy areas are generally less sensitive and more easily able to recover. Gravelly seabed communities are more susceptible because they are quite stable and therefore more likely to have larger, longer-lived species.Impacts can include:Removal of species from the seabed and reduction of biodiversity. In particular, it can change the composition of the ecosystem towards shorter lived and faster growing species that can more easily recover from dredging.Reduction in the complexity of the seabed, which can reduce the number of suitable habitats on which species can settle.Resuspension of sediments, which can smother species and prevent photosynthesis or filter feeding.

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