September 8, 2015 — Tired of hearing about local surfers and swimmers terrorized by great white sharks?
Turn the tables with a knife and fork and dine on “Cape Shark”.
What’s that, you wonder? It’s what we used to call dogfish, and actually still do, but not when it’s on the menu.
The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance has launched a marketing campaign to promote one of the most abundant local fish.
“We have a (two-year) grant from the government to explore domestic markets and we’re working with a whole team of people,” explained Nancy Civetta of the Alliance.
With many fisheries, such as cod, heavily restricted, dogfish, which has been viewed as a pest as much as a potential harvest, offer opportunity. The total permitted catch is 50 million pounds. In 2014 9.3 million pounds were landed in Massachusetts and so far this year 4 million pounds have been caught – an amazing 74 percent of what’s been landed nationally. Massachusetts is dogfish central.
In 2011 Chatham placed second nationally (to Gloucester) in pounds of dogfish landed with 2.8 million pounds (worth $14.2 million) and in recent years that number has gone way up. Civetta estimated it might’ve been close to 6 million pounds last year. But without local buyers the price is low.