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Bluefin tuna central

With its in- and offshore waters a cavorting grounds for the noble, mysterious and highly migratory bluefin tuna, the port of Gloucester has long been a haunt of bluefin fishermen, blue fin buyers and exporters.

Now, thanks to a partnership between the state Division of Marine Fisheries and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the old research station at Hodgins Cove in Bay View — once the site of the loading dock for shipping Gloucester granite, and more recently a UMass seafood research laboratory — is about to become the new, permanent home of a small but globally influential research laboratory dedicated to the study of bluefin tuna and other long- distance marine travelers.

"It's just such a perfect fit on so many levels," said Paul Fisette, chairman of the UMass Department of Environmental Conservation.

To introduce herself and her colleagues to the community, internationally-known tuna scientist and center director Molly Lutcavage has organized a free lecture series at the Gloucester Marine Heritage Center beginning next Thursday and for the next five Thursdays at 7 p.m.

On a petition of the Center for Biological Diversity, and floating on a wave of anxious green warnings, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has undertaken a status review of the bluefin to determine if, as the center alleges, the fish is "the verge or extinction" and should be granted Endangered Species Act protection.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

MELISSA WOOD, NATIONAL FISHERMEN: Meting out the meager

May 22, 2012 - Listening to the New England Council's Groundfish Advisory Panel talk about how that industry is going to pay for monitoring costs is kind of like trying to figure out how to pay your bills when you've just lost your job. Though monitoring is important keeping costs down is critical. As Panel Member Gary Libby pointed out, "If we had 100 percent monitoring we probably wouldn't have an industry."

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