May 10, 2016 — NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — Interstate fishing regulators are considering changes to rules that govern the removal of fins from coastal sharks by fishermen.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is set to consider an amendment that would allow fishermen to bring smooth dogfish to land with fins removed as long as their total retained catch is at least 25 percent dogfish.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Stamford Advocate
April 12, 2016 — The Gulf of Maine brand can also be used to introduce consumers to underused species, such as dogfish, that are numerous in the region, and will likely become more so as sea temperatures continue to rise.
There are traceability programs for lobster, too, such as Trace My Lobster, a Whole Foods initiative launched in Maine that uses coded tags to allow consumers to find out when and where a lobster was caught, and even who caught it.
It’s important for the industry to be able to tell the story behind the lobster – that’s part of the reason people seek out the Maine product. It is also crucial that what is being sold as fresh, Maine lobster lives up to its billing.
But not everyone is playing by the rules.
See the full editorial at the Portland Press Herald
Learn more about sustainability and traceability efforts in the US seafood industry here.
April 5, 2016 — Because restaurants sell 70 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States, chefs are hugely influential in creating market trends, so Latitude 43’s chef Ryder Ritchie wants you to know there’s nothing fishy about dogfish. Or, for that matter, monkfish. Or pogies, or skate, or pollock, hake, tusk, or even, once you get the hang of them, those ubiquitous little invasive crustaceans, green crabs.
Notice, he doesn’t mention redfish, a species that — armed with their moveable feast of redfish soup — the formidable duo of Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and Angela DeFillipo have done a dazzling job of marketing at Boston’s Seafood Expo and beyond.
But everything else that might ever have been referred to as “trash fish?”
Look for it on chef Richie’s future forward menus at Latitude 43.
This Wednesday evening — Latitude 43’s third annual sustainable seafood benefit for Maritime Gloucester — Ritchie recommends for starters, Saffron Monkfish Stew in wild mushrooms and basil; Atlantic Razor Clams with lemongrass, house-made chilies and charred bread; followed by an entree of brown-butter-seared local flounder with capers and golden raisins, grilled asparagus, olive-oil-poached fingerling potatoes, sherry foam and pine nuts.
Flounder? Underutilized?
Yes, says Ritchie. Maybe not as underutilized as other species Gloucester natives like himself grew up hearing “bad stuff about,” but certainly never up there with, say, the now highly regulated, venerable cod.
March 25, 2016 — Dogfish Neck? Cape Skate? Pollock Peninsula?
Can this still be Cape Cod without the cod? There still is cod, and they’re still being caught, but the stocks have collapsed and that was further underlined this week when a Georges Bank quota cut of 62 percent to 762 metric tons was proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Management Council on Monday. That follows an earlier massive cut during the last three-year management period – totaling a 95-percent reduction over the last four years.
Outer Cape fishermen are ahead of the curve – most have already abandoned cod.
“We experienced the lack of cod first. It’s been a long time so several years ago our fishermen transferred to other fish. A lot fish for monkfish, skate, dogfish so the cod rules don’t impact them” explained Claire Fitz-Gerald, Policy Analyst for the Chatham based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.
As recently as 2003 Chatham fishermen brought in 1,053,290 pounds of cod to Chatham Fish Pier while the dogfish catch was 224,589 pounds in 2004 (there was no record for 2003). Now those numbers are flipped. In 2012 just 113,406 pounds of cod were landed at Chatham’s Pier, while 936,563 pounds of dogfish, 64,191 pounds of pollock, 287,753 pounds of skate were brought in.
March 9, 2016 — BOSTON — The Seafood Expo is the largest seafood show in North America covering over 516,000 square feet of exhibition space this week at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
For the second year in a row, members of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance spent three days talking dogfish with international and national buyers and sellers, and executive chefs at the show as part of an ongoing campaign to put the small shark on restaurant menus and on the dinner table as a sustainably caught, local whitefish.
“I think the market is gigantic and, if you talk to the fishermen in Chatham, they will tell you, you can’t drop a hook in the water without getting a dogfish. Between those two facts, (the market) will continue to build over time, but it’s already gaining a lot of traction,” said Michael Dimin, founder of Sea to Table, a company that markets artisanal fish directly to chefs across the country.
Processers successfully campaigned to get dogfish certified by the Marine Stewardship Council a few years back because the population was booming and the dogfish daily trip limit is kept low at 5,000 pounds. Chatham catches about 6 million pounds out of the state’s 9 million pounds in annual landings. The total landings of 16 million pounds fall far below the 50 million pounds scientists consider a sustainable catch.
Compared with other species, dogfish, a small coastal shark, are close to shore and easy to catch. Cod are now far offshore, as are haddock, and monkfish involves a three-day trip, hundreds of miles roundtrip in relatively small boats.
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.
March 8, 2016 — Eat more locally caught seafood. Many of the fish we eat are at risk of being overfished or harmed because of destructive fishing practices. At the same time, there are plentiful fish in our waters, specifically in the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Nova Scotia down to Cape Cod. When we expand our tastes and eat more local, underutilized species, such as Acadian redfish, Atlantic pollock, dogfish, whiting, and Atlantic mackerel, we relieve pressure on overfished species, reduce our dependence on imports (about 90 percent of the seafood we eat is imported), and provide living wages to local fishermen.
Specifically ask for local. When buying seafood in the market or ordering it at a restaurant, always inquire if it’s local.
January 20, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Call them fish sticks for millennials. At any rate, Dana Bartholomew is banking on college students warming up to “Sharck Bites.”
Ipswich Shellfish, of Massachusetts, for which Bartholomew oversees sales, is offering that product — nuggets of dogfish coated in a gluten-free, allergen-friendly crust. Bartholomew, who believes so-called “trash fish” such as dogfish are part of the new wave in New England seafood, already has a couple of colleges on board.
Bartholomew’s fondness for dogfish, a species East Coast fishermen catch millions of pounds of every year that sells for just pennies at the dock, is part of a growing trend in fish markets around the country. The industry is putting more emphasis on fish that have traditionally lacked market appeal or economic value as old staples — such as cod, tuna, haddock and shrimp — decline or become the subject of tougher fishing quotas.
“We know we have to make a great-tasting product that supports local fishermen, supports the local industry and economy,” Bartholomew said. “And it’s local — it’s right here.”
New England’s traditional food fish has long been the Atlantic cod, but it has faded in the face of overfishing and environmental changes. Restaurant owners, fishermen and food processing companies said a growing shift to other species is helping to fill that void. Catch of species such as spiny dogfish, Acadian redfish and scup have all increased dramatically since 10 years ago as cod has fallen.
December 28, 2015 — The rising trend of “trash fish,” or unusual and underutilized seafood species, on fine dining menus in New York City was discussed last week in The New York Times by Jeff Gordinier. The idea is to, “substitute salmon, tuna, shrimp and cod, much of it endangered and the product of dubious (if not destructive) fishing practices,” with less familiar species that are presumably more abundant, like “dogfish, tilefish, Acadian redfish, porgy, hake, cusk, striped black mullet.”
Changing diners’ perceptions isn’t always easy, especially about seafood, but there is certainly momentum building for more diverse seafood species. Seafood suppliers are reporting record sales of fish like porgy and hake. Chefs feel good about serving these new species because, “industrially harvested tuna, salmon and cod is destroying the environment.” A new organization, Dock-to-Dish, connects restaurants with fishermen that are catching underutilized species and these efforts are highlighted as a catalyst for this growing trash fish trend. From a culinary perspective, this trend allows chefs to sell the story of an unusual and sustainable species, which more compelling than more mainstream species like tuna, salmon or cod. From a sustainability perspective, Gordinier implies that serving a diversity of seafood species is more responsible than the mainstream few that are “industrially caught” and dominate the National Fisheries Institute list of most consumed species in America.
Comment by Ray Hilborn, University of Washington
While I applaud the desire to eat underutilized species, it seems as if the chefs interviewed don’t know much about sustainable seafood. Below are a few quotes from the article that give the impression that eating traditional species such as tuna, cod, salmon and shrimp is an environmental crime.
“Salmon, tuna, shrimp and cod, much of it endangered and the product of dubious (if not destructive) fishing practices”
“The chef Molly Mitchell, can’t imagine serving industrially harvested tuna or salmon or cod. “You can’t really eat that stuff anymore,” she said. “It’s destroying the environment.”
“Flying them halfway around the world may not count as an ecofriendly gesture, but these oceanic oddities are a far cry from being decimated the way cod has. “Hopefully they’ll try something new and not just those fishes that are overfarmed and overcaught,” said Jenni Hwang, director of marketing for the Chaya Restaurant Group.”
“A growing cadre of chefs, restaurateurs and fishmongers in New York and around the country is taking on the mission of selling wild and local fish whose populations are not threatened with extinction.”
Read the full commentary at CFOOD
December 22, 2015 — Michael Chernow doesn’t want people to step inside Seamore’s, his fish-fixated restaurant on the rim of Little Italy, worrying that they’re about to get a heap of science homework dumped onto the table.
“Our goal is not to say: ‘Welcome to Seamore’s School. We’re going to teach you all about sustainable fish,’” said Mr. Chernow, who is also one of the entrepreneurs behind the Meatball Shop chain.
But there is a blackboard. Labeled “Daily Landings,” it covers a wall of the restaurant, operating as a shortcut syllabus for anyone who wants to learn not only what fish are being cooked in the kitchen at Seamore’s, but also what species have been deliciously available for human consumption for centuries: dogfish, tilefish, Acadian redfish, porgy, hake, cusk, striped black mullet.
“Once they see the board, everybody gets pumped,” Mr. Chernow said. “‘Wow, look at all these fish, and I’ve never tasted them before.’”
Over the last decade or so, restaurant diners in this country have become more sophisticated about, and open to, ingredients that used to throw them for a loop: bone marrow, pork belly, sunchokes, orange wine, the ubiquitous kale.
Read the full story at The New York Times