Vessel Efficiency in the Northwest Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery

In June, 1999, a portion of the Georges Bank fishing grounds (Closed Area II) that had been closed to protect depleted groundfish stocks was opened to US commercial sea scallopers to harvest sea scallop beds that had grown substantially. Vessels that participated in the exemption fishery were each allowed a maximum of three trips in Closed Area II. A trip was limited to 10,000 pounds of scallop meats per trip and charged 10 days at sea from a vessel=s 1999 days-at-sea allotment. The fishery was further controlled by a 9.4 million pounds scallop total allowable catch (TAC) and a 853,000 pound yellowtail flounder bycatch TAC (an overfished finfish stock). By mid-November, the exemption fishery was terminated because the allowable bycatch of yellowtail had been taken. By this time, 187 out of 276 permitted vessels had made more than 644 trips to Closed Area II, harvesting a total of 6.0 million pounds of scallop meats worth more than $36 million (ex-vessel). This study compares the technical efficiency of limited access scallop vessels which participated in the Closed Area II fishery with those which did not participate. We used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and trip level data to decompose efficiency measures for trips which took place both in and out of Closed Area II. Explicit measures for sea scallop biomass are included in the models to determine how biomass affected the DEA measures.