Saving Seafood

Regulators to revisit saving southern New England’s lobsters

July 28, 2016 — LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Regulators are taking another look at potential strategies to revitalize southern New England’s lobster population, which scientists say has sunk to its lowest levels on record.

The lobster management board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is planning to discuss possible solutions to the problem Aug. 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, near where the commission is based.

The commission’s members have expressed a desire to find new management options to increase egg production in southern New England lobsters by 20 to 60 percent.

Among the options being considered are reducing traps and shortening the fishing season so lobsters have time to reproduce. The population has declined in the face of warming oceans.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WMDT

Sea snails on pace to bring bigger prices

July 11, 2016 — LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Cooking a channeled whelk is not for the squeamish. But sliced and sprinkled over a bed of linguine, it’s a chewy delicacy in old-fashioned Italian eateries along the East Coast.

The sea snails known by Italian-Americans as scungilli used to be such a niche market that fishermen ignored them when they turned up in lobster traps or oyster dredges.

Now they’re a prized commodity. Because of growing demand in Asia and the collapse of other industries, such as lobster, fishermen searching for something else to catch are keeping and selling the big marine snails.

“There’s an international market for the product, primarily in Hong Kong and South China,” said Rick Robins, who owns Bernie’s Conchs in Virginia and manages export sales for Chesapeake Bay Packing. “It’s a popular item in Cantonese cooking.”

Most people who order a plate of scungilli probably haven’t seen one of the hairy-shelled gastropods in the wild. A voracious predator, it crawls along the bottom of Atlantic coastal inlets from Nantucket Sound to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, piercing its razor-edged proboscis into clams and other prey.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

‘Ugly’ snails, once ignored by fishermen, now a prized catch

July 7, 2016 — LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Cooking a channeled whelk is not for the squeamish. But sliced and sprinkled over a bed of linguine, it’s a chewy delicacy in old-fashioned Italian eateries along the East Coast.

The sea snails known by Italian-Americans as scungilli used to be such a niche market that fishermen ignored them when they turned up in lobster traps or oyster dredges.

Now they’re a prized commodity. Because of growing demand in Asia and the collapse of other industries, such as lobster, fishermen searching for something else to catch are keeping and selling the big marine snails.

“There’s an international market for the product, primarily in Hong Kong and South China,” said Rick Robins, who owns Bernie’s Conchs in Virginia and manages export sales for Chesapeake Bay Packing. “It’s a popular item in Cantonese cooking.”

Most people who order a plate of scungilli probably haven’t seen one of the hairy-shelled gastropods in the wild. A voracious predator, it crawls along the bottom of Atlantic coastal inlets from Nantucket Sound to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, piercing its razor-edged proboscis into clams and other prey.

“They’re not like their Caribbean cousin,” said Rhode Island fisherman Greg Mataronas, comparing it to the tropical, vegetarian conch. “They’re the Northern, ugly version. Their faces are a hunk of meat.”

It’s an increasingly lucrative hunk of meat: A large whelk can be sold for as much as $7 in a live market.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald