Don't Give Up

To say that this year’s collapse and die-off of the Peconic bay scallop population is a disappointment is an understatement. Though this outcome was anticipated, it’s also devastating. So much progress has been made in the past decade on improving water quality and restocking filter-feeding shellfish in the East End’s bays, and facing yet another dud of a scallop season can make the investment that’s been put in so far seem like it hasn’t been worth the cost.

But now is not the time to get discouraged and give up. We must remember that 2018 was a banner year for bay scallops because of the effort that has been put in to reverse the devastation wrought by brown tide in the 1980s and 1990s. Warming waters due to climate change and the spread of scallop parasites, also likely due to climate change, have made the task even more difficult — but not an insurmountable challenge.

The Bay Scallop Restoration Program, initiated in 2005, has demonstrated before that it works, though in fits and starts. It’s time to double down on the initiative, not abandon it. The program rebuilt the natural stock once before and should be given every possible resource to do it again in hopes that Mother Nature will eventually stabilize within the realities of our climate.

It’s a fishery that is too important to the East End’s economy and identity to give up on.