People harvesting scallops this season may land themselves a prize, if they find shellfish for scientific research.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has tagged 9000 scallops to study how they grow.
NIWA wants people who find a tagged scallop to report it to them. Tags returned to NIWA go in the draw for the finder to win a catch bag or fishing rod.
The scallops are located in Northland, Coromandel, Golden Bay, Tasman Bay and the Marlborough Sounds.
The scallop season opened this week in most of New Zealand, except for Coromandel and Northland where the season starts on 1 September.
