On May 12, the Coonamessett Farm Foundation hosted the 2026 Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Share Day in collaboration with the New England Fishery Management Council. This public event marked the first Share Day to return to an in-person format since 2019 and brought together commercial fishermen and scientists from the region for a successful day of presentations and discussion.

The Sea Scallop RSA program was developed in the late 1990s by the New England Fishery Management Council with input from the fishing industry and became fully operational by 2003. Competitive RSA grant programs are unique in that award recipients receive harvestable quota rather than direct federal funding to conduct fishery research. Each year a small portion of the total allowable catch is set aside to support the research conducted in collaboration with commercial fishing industry partners.

This year’s Share Day featured ten presentations covering a range of topics, including real-time monitoring of sea scallop health, gear-efficiency testing, age and growth rate estimation, larval sampling techniques, temperature tolerance during early life stages, and the estimation of biomass and distribution of bycatch species in the Atlantic sea scallop fishery on Georges Bank.

More than sixty people registered for and attended this year’s event. We would like to thank NEFMC staff for coordinating and officiating the event, all the researchers that presented on their work, and everyone who was able to attend. A special thank you goes to the vessel owners, captains, and crews that continue to make the RSA program a success through their expertise and support of fisheries research.

More information about Share Day presentations, research topics, and other resources can be found here.