NEW BEDFORD — Once overfished, spiny dogfish are now so plentiful in the waters of New England and the Mid-Atlantic that fishermen have reached the current catch limit after three months instead of six.
That triggered an announcement Wednesday by Patricia Kurkel, regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, that the fishery for dogfish will close at midnight Friday and stay closed until the second half of the regulatory year starts in November.
Recovery efforts for the small shark have been so successful that dogfish have become a nuisance, say fishermen and scientists.
They are by far the most abundant species to be brought up by NOAA's research nets, said Dr. Brian Rothschild, the dean emeritus of the UMass School of Marine Science and Technology. Twenty times as much dogfish by weight was recorded compared to the next most abundant species, redfish, he said.
Rothschild, who chairs the mayor's fishery advisory committee, remarked, "One has to wonder about an ecosystem that has such a dominant number of small sharks."
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