ADF&G closes Bristol Bay-Bering Sea scallop fishery after harvest cap reached

Scallop crews on the Bristol Bay-Bering Sea grounds are done for the season. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed commercial weathervane scallop fishing in Registration Area Q at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, saying catch reports indicated the area's guideline harvest level would be reached by that hour. That level is the area's poundage cap.

Emergency Order 4-S-05-26 lists Asia Beder, acting area management biologist in the department's Dutch Harbor office, as its contact; harvesting in the area had to stop at the stated time.

The 2026 scallop stock assessment and fishery evaluation report lists just two vessels participating statewide in 2025/26, landing 317,085 pounds of shucked meats worth an estimated $5.1 million, the highest nominal value of the past decade. Shucked meat is meat without shells. The report qualifies it: with only two boats the state cannot publish scallop prices, so industry supplied the estimate, unverified.

Area Q is this season's latest state scallop closure, after Yakutat closed Aug. 26 at its 145,000-pound cap and Unimak Bight closed Sept. 10 with its 7,500-pound quota filled. The statewide guideline harvest level stands at 374,700 pounds, and the 2025-2026 commercial regulations list an Area Q range of zero to 300,000 pounds of shucked meat.

Rachel Baker, the department's deputy commissioner, told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on June 6 that "state management of the scallop resource using area-specific GHLs, guideline harvest levels, continues to be conservative in terms of our management structure." With two boats and area-by-area caps, one emergency order ends a season. Details are available from the department's Dutch Harbor office at (907) 581-1239.