Saving Seafood

Climate Change Looms as a Long-Term Threat to Aquaculture

November 16, 2018 — Aquaculture is on the rise in Massachusetts.  For many entering the business, shellfish farming seems like a more secure option than the marine fisheries.  But climate change looms as a long-term threat over the industry.

Paul Wittenstein always wanted to be a commercial fisherman.

Growing up in Harwich, he worked summer jobs at fish markets and on chartered fishing boats. In college, he started out studying fisheries technology, but it was a bad time for the industry. “All the while I was in school, I was watching the fishing industry struggling,” he said.  “I watched the cod disappear. I watched small boats battling big boats. At the same time, I saw this tiny little shellfish industry start to take hold.”

Read the full story on WCAI

Skate liver oil could boost fishing industry

March 13, 2017 — Two engineers showed up at the Chatham Fish Pier a few winters ago and struck up a conversation with some fishermen who were unloading their catch.

Steve Daly and Bill Hannabach asked for some of the fish because they were doing research for a new business venture. The fishermen obliged and the men took home totes with a variety of species.

“You have two rubes from out of town. They could have easily said get out of here,” said Daly with a grin. “They didn’t know what we were doing. We could have been making fertilizer, we could have been making pottery.”

This week Daly and Hannabach were once again at a Cape Cod dock, this time at Saquatucket Harbor in Harwich, with some of the same fishermen they had met when they first began experimenting with everything from monkfish to dogfish. But now they had with them the results of their foray into the fishing industry, their first product, MassOMEGA: New England’s Wild Fish Oil, set to be launched today and almost totally made from winter skate brought in by local fishermen.

“We have taken some of Nick’s skates, basically pulled the oil out and purified it,” said Daly, standing beside Nick Muto and his 40-foot boat the Dawn T.

Muto had just come in with his crew after close to 30 hours at sea with a hold full of skate.

“It is truly an amazing fish oil. It’s better than cod liver oil. Skates have such a high level of omega-3s. Tuna is a close second, but after that it drops off significantly,” Daly said.

Muto, as many fishermen do, keeps the wings of the skate to sell, but usually throws the bodies, or racks, overboard. But after fellow fisherman Doug Feeney introduced him to Daly and Hannabach, Muto carved up the skate bodies and gave the businessmen a big bag of livers.

The fishermen knew that capitalizing on an under-utilized fish in a sustainable way was important to the small boat fishery as well as the economic health of the wider community. They also knew that fishermen were busy fishing and running a business and lacked outside investment to launch new products.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Video equipment installed on Cape fishing boats

May 31, 2016 — On the Dawn T, commercial fisherman Nick Muto inked “Big Brother” next to a switch that turns on a sophisticated video system that will record everything on deck from the time he leaves the dock to his return.

Between 10 and 20 fishermen from Rhode Island to Maine on Wednesday will flip the switch and turn on the cameras. Three Cape fishermen have had the equipment installed on their vessels, and three more are scheduled to be outfitted.

“We all need to take ownership of what we are doing,” Muto said. “If we want to see a future in fishing, we need more accurate information.

While there have already been pilot programs to evaluate video monitoring, this is the first time, under what is known as an Exempted Fishing Permit, that the information gathered by video will be incorporated into the management process. The fishermen, Muto included, volunteered for the program.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Cameras to be Used for Monitoring On Some New England Groundfish Vessels

May 27, 2016 — HARWICH, Mass.– A commercial fishing association says a group of fishermen from Massachusetts and Maine will use digital cameras instead of human monitors to collect data during trips at sea.

Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance says up to 20 fishermen who catch groundfish such as cod and flounder will use the cameras in a first-time program.

The fishermen are required to bring monitors on some fishing trips. Many fishermen say the cost of human monitors is prohibitive.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bristol Herald Courier