Thirty years after Norway's scallop fishery collapsed, this company and a retrofitted oil vessel are bringing it back

Thirty years ago, Norway shut down its Arctic scallops industry after overfishing caused a total collapse of the shellfish population.

But after years of research into the stocks and the health of the seabed where the shellfish thrive, a small startup has been given a commercial license to harvest 15,000 metric tons of scallops near the remote Bjornoya (Bear Island) in the Barents Sea for five years.

The company, Ava Ocean, worked in collaboration with Norwegian research organization Sintef, and six years later, after demonstrating a recovery in the scallop population, won approval from a cautious Norwegian government for the project.