Man, voice-over: I grew up sailing, and when I was 12, my family sailed our boat from Albany, New York up to South Bristol, Maine, and I became infatuated with lobstering.
I wanted to be a lobster man, making a living on the water.
But getting a lobster license is quite hard.
In Maine, we have a waiting list for lobstering and licenses are scarce, and there's also warming waters.
Stewart, voice-over: The Gulf of Maine is the fastest warming body of water on the planet.
Froehlich, voice-over: The lobsters are moving because it's getting hot, and their food is moving.
That is rooted in climate change.
Peters, voice-over: There used to be lobsters down in Long Island, and Massachusetts, quite plentiful in the inshore fisheries, and they're definitely moving further northeast.
So there's a question mark as to what will happen and when that will happen in Maine.
Froehlich, voice-over: When the environments change, so do the species dynamics, right?
So you're gonna have these types of trickle-down effects from climate change impacting people, impacting the entire ecosystem.
So the future is going to be more dependent on aquaculture, largely because we've tapped out our wild capture fisheries.
Worker: 7, the order already paid.
Number 77.
Baby: Scallops.
Peters: Yeah.
Woman: Scallops, yeah.
Peters: Do you like scallops?
Peters, voice-over: And so, thinking about sustainability of what I can do on the water, I was drawn to aquaculture.
And a good friend of mine was like, "People love scallops, "prices have historically been strong, "and so if we can figure out how to grow these things, we can sell 'em."
Stewart, voice-over: I think we have to respect what is around us and we have to replace what we have taken, we have to encourage new growth where it has stopped.
We have to really work very hard to make sure that these species stay alive and well.
So I was anxious to see what Andrew and his crew were doing out there in Penobscot Bay.
Peters: Welcome aboard.
Just watch your step up.
We're excited to take you down the bay and show you the farm.
[Boat engine roaring] Peters, voice-over: We're new to this.
We've only been doing this for 5 years, roughly, and we're still learning a lot each year.
Stewart: How many people are farming scallops like this?
As far as I know, there's probably two or 3 of us on a commercial scale on the East Coast.
Normally, we harvest them after two years on the farm.
Peters, voice-over: We will probably harvest between 20,000 and 30,000 scallops, and that's up from roughly 8,000 last year.
A scallop is a bivalve that lives on the ocean floor.
Stewart, voice-over: Scallops are fascinating creatures, with two beautiful shells.
The part that we eat is the muscle that opens and closes those shells.
Man, voice-over: Bivalves are a particular class of organisms, are very prone to sustainable aquaculture.
Because they are passively feeding by filtering the water, they return the particles from which they derive their food and their growth, and they return cleaner water instead.
Stewart: So what's in there?
So these are the bags we use to collect the seed.
Yeah, so inside here, there's lots of little spats, so scallops about the size of your pinky fingernail.
Peters: So when scallops spawn, the egg turns into a larvae, and that's what we call spat.
Stewart: You put this right in there?
Peters: Nope.
Coleman: There's no hatchery, so you can't go out and just buy seed, you have to catch it yourself.
Peters: They collect in there naturally.
So we put these out-- How do they get through?
Because they're microscopic larvae.
Oh, look at this.
Peters: So they're just floating in the water column.
That is a scallop.
I don't wanna hurt them.
Peters: They attach themselves onto the netting, and then they start to grow a shell.
And then once they start growing a shell... -Look how many.
-They can't get out of the netting, so.
-You have hundreds in here.
Peters: Yeah.
So these have been in here a year?
Just about, yeah.
Now, all of these go into the next sized net?
Peters: Yes.
Stick the funnel in there and just give it a scoop.
Stewart: And there's enough nutrients in the water to feed all of these.
Peters: Yeah, lots.
Isn't that great?
Peters: Cleaning.
Stewart: Look what I found.
Ah!
Peters: Oh, a starfish.
Stewart: Look.
Peters: So that's our number one enemy.
They're keepin' the sea floor clean of baby scallops.
Oh, my gosh, so that should go back in the sea, right?
Peters: Yeah.
Well, yeah.
What?
You can't--you-- Come-- Coleman: We're joking.
Right?
Peters: Yeah, that goes back.
Toss it back.
-That goes back.
Peters: Here we go.
Awesome.
Yes.
OK. That's it.
Peters: That's it.
We'll set these out.
Peters, voice-over: We use a static submerged long line.
Off of that horizontal portion of the long line, we will hang different types of gear depending on the stage of growth of the scallop.
So you've got this, essentially, like a curtain of nets in the water.
When the scallops grow from fall through the winter and into the spring, where once they're large enough... Oh, look at this.
Ah!
Peters, voice-over: we then take the scallops back onboard the boat.
Oh, my gosh, you have to be strong.
Peters, voice-over: We grade them for size, and then we do our ear hanging process.
Ooh, hello, [Chuckles] I'm Martha.
[Chuckling] Peters: So this drill drills a hole into the bissel notch so the hinge will have a hole to then put the scallops on the dropper line.
Stewart: Wow, sounds like a dentist's office.
It does.
[Drill whirring] You're doing great.
I think you're angling for a job, Martha.
I can work in any business, believe me.
Yeah.
Peters: So we've drilled the scallops, they each have a hole in 'em.
So we've got our dropper line and it's got the pins already through the line, and so we're gonna put 'em- So they have one hole in one ear.
Yep, exactly.
And we just- -You have to find the hole.
Push it past that bar.
Can you see this little bar, and then when you pull back, it can't go out.
-Can't go out, yeah.
-That is ingenious.
Yeah, very simple.
So look how pretty.
And then, they are going to be happily dropped back into the ocean, where they will stay yet another year.
Yet another year, or two.
Grow and grow.
Peters, voice-over: It's incredibly labor intensive.
Over the course of a scallop's lifespan, they're each handled upwards of 7 times or more.
It is a process.
It sure is.
Peters, voice-over: And then, there's also risk in what we're doing.
Particularly our dropper lines, if they touch the bottom at all, there's an army of crabs and starfish down there that are waiting to feast.
Or, you know, a windjammer could come along and total our gear, and we'd be outta luck.
But when you're out there every day, and you see the scallops, pull 'em on board and they're clapping or they're swimming around in the tank, it's like, that's the energy and that's the drive.
Stewart: They're certainly environmentally conscious of the ocean.
They understand that food has to come from somewhere.
And to see a group of young men trying to do something a little bit different with the fishery business in America is very encouraging.
Stewart, voice-over: Farming can also be friendlier to the environment than the traditional methods of collecting wild scallops in Maine.
Peters, voice-over: Wild scallops are caught, normally, two different ways.
The majority are dragged along the ocean floor.
And then the other way is diving for them.
Or they'd scoop up scallops one at a time.
Oh, we can shuck one.
[Knife rasping] Candy.
Scallop candy.
Hmm.
Sushi quality.
-Yes.
Yeah.
They don't get better than right outta the shell.
Stewart, voice-over: I think the whole trend of eat local, buy local, grow local couldn't be better.
Do you like cooking?
Like, yeah.
Yeah?
Awesome.
Peters, voice-over: Most folks aren't aware that we're farming scallops.
The first question is normally where do they come from?
And there's great surprise when we tell them they're from right here, Penobscot Bay.
-Thank you so much.
-Yeah, you're quite welcome.
Enjoy.
Keep cookin'.
Peters, voice-over: And also that they can get fresh Maine scallops in the summertime, out of the season from the wild harvest.
[Knife scraping] Froehlich, voice-over: The role aquaculture can play in the sustainable production of food.
We can see growing things like seaweeds and bivalves have very, very low impact in comparison to many other foods that we produce.
They can pull nutrients and CO2 out of the water as well.
And so, you can have these kind of mutual co-benefits.
Stewart: There is our gorgeous scallop salad.
Mmm.
Wow, I love it.
[Chuckles] Stewart, voice-over: This kind of creative farming is extremely important for the future of the planet.
And if we can keep these oceans healthy and not warm them too much, maybe we do have a future for the fishing industry, and a future on Earth.
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