Scallop Season Delayed- Bay harvesters will wait until Nov. 1 to start

Gov. George E. Pataki has signed a bill that will delay the start of the annual scallop season in state waters until the first Monday in November, a month later than the traditional opening.

The East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold Town Trustees have agreed to follow the state's lead in their own regulations. Some baymen see a disadvantage, however.

The bill was sponsored by State Assemblymen Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Thomas DiNapoli. Kenneth P. LaValle championed the measure in the Senate. The monthlong delay will restrict the harvest of so-called "legal bugs," that is, immature scallops, and it gives the State Department of Environmental Conservation unspecified "additional authority" to manage the bay scallop until Dec. 31, 2007.

The special authority extends to sea scallops as well. The Legislature voted to give the D.E.C. similar authority over the management of oysters in June. State shellfishing laws require townships to maintain regulations in their waters that are at least as restrictive as the state's.

The scallop legislation was written with the help of the Nature Conservancy, which has been active in the effort to resurrect the Peconic scallop population after brown algae blooms decimated the resource beginning in the mid-1980s. In recent years, the harvest in the Peconic system has been less than 2 percent of historic levels.

Greg Rivara, a shellfish specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension, said delay of the season opening would give scallops a chance to spawn more than once before they die.

"You see animals in shucking houses with ripe gonads," he said. "The question is, will the [late-occurring] spawn survive in the fall and over winter? With such a low resource, it makes sense to give them a chance."

Mr. Rivara explained that language in the revised regulations requires harvesters to look for a growth ring, a line that appears on a scallop's shell parallel to the bill, or opening edge. The law used to require scallopers to harvest only those scallops that either measured at least two and a quarter inches from bill to hinge, or those with had a growth ring.

Most scallops measuring two and a quarter inches have spawned. However, if a scallop is the product of an early spawn, or if it experienced extraordinary growth, it might attain its two-and-a-quarter-inch width by December and be harvested before it has spawned.

Mr. Rivara said that the scallop's growth ring, which is caused by a cessation of growth during the winter months, does not prove that the scallop has spawned, but does indicate that it will spawn in the spring. The new regulation requires both the minimum size and a growth ring. The average life span of a scallop is only 24 months.

The later season opening could also result in better yields. "October will put on abductor weight," Mr. Rivara said, referring to the abductor muscle, the edible meat in a scallop. A bushel that yields six or seven pounds of meats in October could yield over eight pounds a month later.

The downside in the marketplace, in the minds of some scallopers, lies in the fact that a November opening means they won't get the usual jump over competitors in Nantucket, where harvesters have dealt with a November season opening for some time.

Within the borders of East Hampton, a scallop spawning sanctuary has been created in Northwest Harbor, a cooperative effort of the Town Shellfish Hatchery, Southampton College, the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Nature Conservancy, and the state wildlife grants program. It is hoped that bug scallops placed close to each other on the bottom will more readily trigger healthy spawns. The sanctuary will be off limits to scallopers.

Tom Knobel, an East Hampton Town trustee, said it was conceivable that his nine-member board would one day disagree with the new regulations. For instance, should a section of the town's bottomland suddenly have a bumper crop, a November opening would mean that a portion of the resource would be wasted, given the scallop's short life span.

At the same time, he said that while his board maintained the right to regulate shellfish in town waters, it was reticent to resist state fishing regulations, because "we would not be doing our freeholders a favor by putting them in violation of state law."

He said the trustees planned to inform the East Hampton Town Board of the season change.