March 8, 2016 — Dogfish, aka spiny dogfish, dogfish shark, or Cape shark is small species of shark caught commercially along the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to North Carolina. On Cape Cod, it’s relatively easy to catch using longline or gillnets within 10 miles of Chatham, Mass.
“In the summertime we find the dogfish literally as soon as we fall outside the harbour,” says Nick Muto, a Cape Cod fisherman, and a member of board of directors for the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. “We have miles of dogfish.”
Dogfish has become abundant in the waters off New England, and codfish has all but disappeared due to the confluence of warming oceans, says Muto.
“But out of that has risen this emerging dogfish fishery that has become a real building block of our harbor.”
Abundant it may be. But Americans aren’t yet buying it.
It might be an image problem. Or maybe the name “dogfish” is enough to turn seafood consumers away. Maybe it’s the taste.
Whatever it is, the abundant fish has been seen in the US as a lower-valued species — “trash fish” — so that much of the catch is exported overseas.