Torngat Fish Producers Cooperative believes that there is a valuable asset in the waters in Nain that’s has gone off unfished since 2006.
Torngat Fish Producers Cooperative wants to but scallops from fish harvesters more than a decade after interest in the fishery dried up.
The group conducted a survey in the fall to show potential harvesters the stock is still off the coast of Nain and Makkovik and remains healthy.
Keith Watts is the General Manager of Torngat Fisheries.
He believes scallops strengthen the overall fishery in Nunatsiavut and wish people had never stopped taking them from the sea.
Watts says” we’ve never given up on the scallop, it’s just that people didn’t want to fish it.
Before the survey took 800 pounds of Icelandic scallops from the water, the species had not been fished since 2006.
He says, the inshore shrimp and snowcrab fishery was more stable at the time, and people didn’t have the need to move up north to fish for a living.
Watts says with only two or three commercial boats located in Nunatsiavut it created a major problem for the cooperative. The capacity for fishers with vessels is almost nil on the north coast.
He added they are hopeful that they may re-start the scallop fishery in Nain this summer. Ok radio hopes to do interview with Watts whenever the phonelines are back in order to do interviews from out of town. Story courtesy from CBC.ca.