• There have never been so many scallops in the bays of Seine and Saint-Brieuc, the two main French deposits.

  • This new abundance record confirms "the favorable trend of recent years", according to Ifremer.

  • The scallop fishing season officially starts this Saturday.

There shouldn't be a lack of scallops for the holiday season.

According to Ifremer's observations made this summer, the populations have broken a new abundance record in the Bay of Seine and in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, the two main French deposits.

"All the indicators of good state of the scallop population in these two areas are green for the fishing season which officially starts on October 1st", indicates the research institute, specifying that this new record confirms " favorable trend of recent years.

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In the Seine Bay deposit, which goes from Barfleur (Manche) to Cap d'Antifer (Seine-Maritime), the situation is thus described as "exceptional" with a total exploitable biomass over the entire estimated season. to 105,000 tons.

Smaller shells this year

The only downside, “the shells are smaller due to a delay in growth”, underlines Ifremer, explaining this delay by the drought and the heat wave that we experienced this summer.

"The production of phytoplankton on which the shells feed seems to have been lower this summer, due to the lack of fresh water supply and the particularly strong heat", explains the institute.


In the bay of Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d'Armor), 46,000 tonnes of shells should be exploitable during the season, a figure up 5% compared to last year.

"But the total biomass could reach 63,100 tonnes at the end of the year depending on the growth of the shells over the season", warns the institute, welcoming the efforts made by the fishing world.

"We can cite in particular the overall reduction in fishing effort by setting up fishing dates and times, improving the selectivity of gear with the use of larger dredge rings, or even the setting up of a fallow zone in the bay of the Seine which changes every year”, concludes Ifremer.

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