The association, which represents small-scale commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen operating inside the Island’s three-mile limit, and the company Ormers and Scallops of Jersey Ltd, which is based at Le Crête Quarry in St Martin and is growing ormers in captivity, are releasing the shellfish into the wild at a stage in their development when they are unlikely to be eaten by predators.
The association says that ormer stocks appear to be recovering from a bacterial disease which killed off many populations here, at the Minquiers and in France in the late 1990s.
However, they also say that their new seeding operation, which could begin before Christmas if the weather is favourable, will speed up the recovery.
If all goes according to plan, up to 1,000 ormers, all of which will be grown to a suitable size from local stock, will be released annually.
Full story in Saturday’s JEP
