East End Scallop Industry in Dire Struggle Amid Ongoing Die-Off

How bad was the scallop season on Long Island’s East End this year?

“The season was really bad,” Harrison Tobi, who heads the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s bay scallop restoration program, told Dan’s Papers in a recent interview. “There was a drastically low adult population.”

Tobi said one fisherman netted all of one pound of bay scallops on a recent expedition.

Now, Cornell and New York State have launched a program to restore bay scallops, which mostly come from Peconic Bay. One of the biggest years for scallop fishing was 2018, the year before a massive die-off that lasted into 2020. Tobi and other marine experts believe the die-off was tied to a pathogen that severely damaged fishing in the ensuing years.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office earlier this year agreed to distribute $3.5 million in funds to help preserve and restore the South Shore’s estuary preserve.

That amount includes $350,000 for research into bay scallops “resilience to disease to increase species population.”

According to figures supplied by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the scallop situation is dire.

The department said that in the 2024-25 season, only 979.7 pounds were brought to land from all local bays. For Peconic Bay, this season’s totals are only only 524.4 pounds

In comparison, before the die-offs, landings reached 110,802 pounds for the 2018-19 season.

In an effort to fight the pathogen believed to be devastating the scallops, Cornell researchers have recruited generations of scallops from Moriches Bay and Martha’s Vineyard. The hope is that these new generations will become the primary brood stock for scallops at Cornell’s hatchery in Orient. Researchers believe those scallops will grow and breed in the wild.

“The goal is to bring back the fishery,” Tobi said.

“We’re trying to get the baymen involved in our research.” Cornell wants baymen to report what they see and find in the waters, so as to give researchers a fresh perspective on what is taking place with the scallop population.

“Getting the baymen involved is essential,” Tobi said.

Hochul’s plan for research into the scallop issues is part of a broader program to strengthen Long Island’s South Shore following significant damage from erosion caused by coastal storms. Work is planned for Tobay and Overlook beaches, the governor’s office said.

Tobi said if state and local efforts do not work, “we may not get the fishery back.”

It is a dim prospect for baymen, who struggle even in good years to make a living off the sea.

Cornell has had success, however, in spawning oysters, after a lengthy effort to revive an industry that had been part of the bedrock of the East End’s economy for decades.

Matters have improved to such a degree that political and government officials in Suffolk got together earlier this year to plan a Long Island Oyster Festival at Smith Point – a first for Suffolk County. The Oyster Festal in Nassau has drawn huge crowds for years. There was controversy at the Nassau festival last year, when some fisherman complained oysters were brought in from Connecticut.

Mike Martino, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, told Dan’s Papers that plans are still being formulated. The Suffolk festival is likely to take place in the fall.

But local oyster growers are complaining about the difficulty of securing seed oysters from commercial hatcheries.

One of them, Phil Mastrangelo, owner of Oysterponds Shellfish Co. in Orient, told Dan’s Papers that he had trouble getting seed from a supplier in Maine. Survival issues of the stock were the primary reason, he said. His business suffered a bit of a setback he said, since it did not receive seed until August.

Cornell has stepped in and provided 1.3 million seed oysters to local hatcheries, something it ordinarily does not do. But something some board members think Cornell should do in the future.