2002-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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Little River Temperature Data 17.0 13.0 e 9.0 f Q 5.0 1.0 n fl -3.0 11/11/02 11/22/02 12/03/02 12/13/02 12/24/02 01/04103 s Date On opening day of scallop season(October 1)the The propagation program increased this year with water was so warm(65-70° F) that some people were more than three million small quahog seed(1 mm)that scalloping in bathing suits. The scallop harvest in were obtained from the state-funded Massachusetts t Waquoit Bay was about 400 bushels from October to Division of Marine Fisheries/Barnstable County December 2002 with plenty more left for the rest of the Shellfish program at no cost to the Town. These were =? season (through March 2003). This was the result of grown in our upweller tanks, and then transferred to the cooperative Mashpee/Falmouth scallop seeding trays in the estuary.After growing to a larger size,they program. Before scallop seeding was added to the were planted in the estuaries in areas with good bottom propagation program several years ago, scallops had habitat. The members of AmeriCorps Cape Cod put in 'Fl become so scarce that people came in with just a few or many hours working on the propagation program. no scallops on opening day, and that was it for the sea- son.The scallop population was dying out in Waquoit Water quality is still a problem in some areas. r Bay, and there were no scallops to be found in Testing of water samples in the Shellfish Dept. Water F.? Popponesset Bay or elsewhere for years. To address Quality Laboratory identified wildlife and road runoff this problem, in 1998 the Falmouth and Mashpee as the major contributors of coliform bacteria. Our data show how and where bacteria levels increase after Shellfish Departments started releasing more than 100,000 large scallop seed every year in Waquoit Bay. rainstorms in some locations. Our results also show n The seed was from local stock spawned and grown to that the bacteria counts decrease when temperatures 'j sizes larger than one inch(>25 mm) at hatcheries. The get low enough in winter to kill coliform bacteria by resulting harvests were about 50 bushels in 1999, 100 freezing. Very cold weather in December 2002 caused bushels in 2000, and another 100 bushels in 2001. In water temperatures in the estuaries to drop below 29 in 7,, 2000,the Mashpee Shellfish Dept. purchased one mil- degrees Fahrenheit. This killed off the fecal coliform h lion small (2 mm) seed scallops from the hatchery. bacteria early enough for the closed areas south of These were grown in our upweller tanks before being Buccaneer Way (Orsini Beach) in the Mashpee River, s transferred to trays in the estuary. After growing even and south of Simon's Narrows Road (Mitchell's pier) is "larger, they were released into good growing areas in in Shoestring Bay to be opened for shellfishing from n Waquoit Bay and Popponesset Bay.We continued with January through March 2003. The drop in water tem- about a million scallop seed a year in 2001 and 2002. peratures is shown in the graph below which was n The seeding has been very successful in Waquoit Bay. recorded by the Shellfish Department's new water a Some scallops were also harvested in Popponesset Bay qualitymonitoring station (sonde) in Little River. The �t in 2001 and 2002. To be successful the seed must be sonde measures water temperature, salinity, dissolved large enough to reduce mortality from predators such oxygen and chlorophyll every 15 minutes continu- as crabs,and from smothering in seaweed or soft mud ously, year round. Another new sonde (not measuring ;r bottom substrate. These factors caused mortalities of chlorophyll) located in the Mashpee River is removed ' the naturally spawned larvae and small seed scallops, in the winter to avoid ice damage in the very shallow I and probably led to the decline of the wild population. water there. 103