Trump Reopens Georges Bank Seabed Closed Since 1994 To Halt Its Overfishing, Declares National Scallops Day To Mark The Occasion

WASHINGTON. The Trump administration announced Thursday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had reopened 171 square miles of the Northern Edge of Georges Bank to commercial scallop fishing, restoring public access to a stretch of seabed that had been closed since 1994 for the express purpose of not being fished into ruin.

The grounds, shut down after decades of overharvesting left New England fish stocks depleted, had spent 32 years off-limits so that their seafloor habitat and juvenile fish could recover. Administration officials confirmed that this recovery, long understood to be the entire point of the closure, was the specific condition the new policy had been designed to bring to an end.

To commemorate the reopening, the President took to Truth Social to establish a federal observance. "Today I am declaring a National Scallops Day to celebrate an action taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that will open up the Northern Edge of Georges Bank to Scallops Fishing," Trump wrote, in a post that went on to fault former Presidents Obama and Biden for the years during which the scallops had been allowed to remain in the ocean.

The declaration followed the administration's proclamation earlier in the year reopening the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the only marine monument in the U.S. Atlantic, to commercial fishing, and formed part of a broader push to remove regulations from the commercial fishing industry. A source within the administration described the sequencing as deliberate, noting that the government had spent months identifying which of the ocean's remaining protected areas were protected.

Conservation groups, which have promised litigation, warned that dredging equipment dragged across the newly opened habitat would undo the seafloor recovery the closure had spent three decades securing. Officials responded that any such damage would be evaluated after it occurred, and only if a court required them to look.

At press time, the President had proposed a second holiday to honor whichever fish stock collapsed first.