Saving Seafood

Dogfish — it’s what’s for dinner on the Cape

July 5, 2017 — “Dogfish, you want to try the dogfish?” queried my companion as we eyed the menu at Provincetown’s Far Land on the Beach. With just $20 between us, we were wavering between sharing one $19 lobster roll, or each ordering our own $9 dogfish sandwich.

Dogfish, a small shark, was on the Memorial Day menu courtesy of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance Pier to Plate Program, a first-of-its-kind initiative promoting local, sustainably caught but relatively unknown fish.

Hungry from biking, we opted for the dogfish sandwiches. We were not disappointed.

Dusted in cornmeal and deep-fried, the white fish patty was meaty and moist without strong flavor. It didn’t flake like cod, but it was piping hot, slightly crunchy, and served on a buttery brioche roll with lettuce, tomato, and a caper basil tartar sauce. It hit the spot.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

A growing concern over great white sharks in Cape Cod

June 29, 2017 — An influx of great white shark sightings has residents and tourists worried about potential encounters in the water, especially during the heart of summer.

Senior Fisheries Biologist Dr. Greg Skomal told ABC News the increase in the great white shark population off the Massachusetts coastline is correlated to the gray seal population and that numbers are expected to rise even further.

“We’ve been studying sharks off the coast of Massachusetts for 30 years and our work with white sharks off Cape Cod is relatively recent,” Dr. Skomal said on “Good Morning America.” “The numbers we’re seeing on a relative scale are increasing, in 2014 we counted 80 individuals over the course of the summer and just last summer that went up to about 147. So there is a general increasing trend as more and more sharks recruit to the area.”

This season at least six great white shark sightings have already been reported, including a recent sighting off Wellfleet on May 9.

The National Park Service for Cape Cod has issued alerts to heed advisories at beaches to help ensure safety “particularly regarding white sharks.”

Skomal believes the influx of sharks is a direct result of the growing seal population. “We think it’s highly correlated with the growing presence of gray seals in the area. Big white sharks like to feed on gray seals. Over the course of the last 45 years, the gray seal population is a conservation success story. It has rebounded after protection was put in place in 1972 and that rebounding population now has reached levels that could be an excess of 20 to 30,000 animals in the area and white sharks are drawn to those areas to feed on them.”

Read the full story at WJBF

No unprovoked shark attacks in Maine. “Not one.”

June 28, 2017 — Days after there was a reported shark sighting on Wells Beach, a University of New England shark expert tells beachgoers the chances of being attacked by a shark, particularly in Maine, are astronomically low.

Police cleared Wells Beach of swimmers Sunday afternoon, after a reported sighting of a shark. Wells Police Sgt. Adam Shaw said it was a precautionary measure, taken when someone reported seeing a 12-foot shark in the water between Wells Beach and North Beach. He said the harbormaster searched the area and found no signs of a shark.

The initial report came from a paddleboarder who said the shark was as long or longer than his 12-foot board. A second report came from an individual who thought it was a harmless basking shark.

Dr. James Sulikowski, professor of marine science at University of New England in Biddeford, said beachgoers globally are concerned about sharks – but that needs to be put in some perspective.

“One of the biggest concerns people have when they go to the beach is being attacked and eaten by a shark,” Sulikowski said. “But if you look at it globally, there are 100 to 150 shark attacks per year – that’s across the world. And if you put it in perspective with how many billions of people there are, the chances are astronomically low. And then to bring it into further perspective, there’s never been an unprovoked shark attack in Maine. Not one.”

Sulikowski, a global expert in the study of sharks, said basking sharks are more common in Maine waters, and are often confused with great white sharks. He said they often come much close to shore and they can be 25 to 30 feet long. They have big wide mouths and no teeth, and they feed on plankton and small fish, he said.

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Shark Expert Named Guest Conductor for 32nd Annual Citizens Bank Pops by the Sea

June 28, 2017 — Dr. Greg Skomal with the state Division of Marine Fisheries will be the guest conductor of this year’s Citizens Bank Pops by the Seas concert.

The 32nd annual event will be held on August 13 on the Hyannis Village Green.

Skomal will join Keith Lockhart and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a show that celebrates the Cape and the music of film composer John Williams.

Coinciding with Williams’ 85th birthday, the concert will perform scores from “Harry Potter”, “Star Wars” and “Jaws”.

“We started thinking about how we could build upon this awesome music and the history and we were thinking about Cape Cod and then we were thinking about jaws, and sharks and Greg Skomal came to mind,” said Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Executive Director Julie Wake.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Omar the shark back in Chatham

June 27, 2017 — An 11-foot great white shark known to researchers as Omar has returned to Cape Cod just in time for the summer season, according to local shark watchers.

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientist Gregory Skomal and his team of researchers tracked the tagged shark from their boat off the coast of Chatham early yesterday morning.

“It’s exciting,” Skomal said. “It’s like seeing somewhat of an old friend.”

As the Herald reported yesterday, 147 great white sharks were confirmed in Cape Cod waters last summer, and Skomal predicts at least that many will return this season. The sharks are largely drawn to the abundant grey seal population that lives off the Cape’s eastern seaboard.

Omar has a history in Cape waters. According to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, biologist John Chisholm first identified the great white in 2015. Skomal tagged the animal when he returned last summer, allowing his team to detect when Omar swims near one of their research receivers.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

Sharks have been a major disruption for fishermen off the Outer Banks this year

June 24, 2017 — Sharks are chomping the catch of the day.

Fishing off the Outer Banks has been great this year, especially with big hauls of tuna. But boat captains are losing up to 20 fish a day to the opportunistic predators.

Able to smell, hear or sense the struggling fish from miles away, sharks come like a pack of wolves. In some cases, anglers are reeling in nothing but the head.

“You can’t even get a fish to the boat,” said Jack Graham, first mate on the Fintastic, a charter boat based at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. “You get a bite and look back and there’s just a big cloud of blood.”

Sharks are taking the catch along with thousands of dollars in fishing gear, he said.

Captains could bring in their boats with the tuna limit by midmorning if not for sharks gobbling the catch, said Carey Foster, mate on the Smoker, also docked at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center.

“The last couple of weeks, they’ve been horrible,” he said.

State fishing summaries include reports of sharks preying almost exclusively on tuna catches.

“This is the highest bite rate I’ve seen in 27 years,” said Brian Melott, a port agent for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. “These bites ain’t small either.”

Melott surveys anglers and collects catch measurements and other data as part of an ongoing fisheries census.

The two primary species attacking are dusky and sandbar sharks, Graham said. Dusky sharks grow up to 14 feet long and are known for their powerful jaws. Sandbar sharks can reach about 8 feet.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Cape Cod Warned of Shark Boom

June 26, 2017 — A great white shark population boom is underway off Cape Cod, with as many as 150 expected in local waters this summer — and first responders are training to keep an eye out for the massive predators and deal with their traumatic bites.

“They have multiplied in numbers exponentially since I became chief,” said Orleans fire Chief Anthony Pike, who has led Orleans Fire and Rescue for the past three years. “Great white sharks comprise about 30 percent of my daily work right now, and I never, ever thought that would be a thing.”

Massachusetts Marine Fisheries scientist Gregory Skomal and others began studying the regional population of white sharks in 2014, when they counted 68 great whites. Last summer, that number was 147.

Skomal says 40 percent of the 141 sharks his research team tracked in 2015 returned to Cape waters in 2016. According to the Atlantic Shark Conservancy, there have already been eight confirmed great white sightings this month. Great whites typically patrol to the cool ocean waters off Chatham and other Cape towns between July and October, and Skomal — who has been with Marine Fisheries for 30 years — said the number of shark sightings has jumped over the past decade.

“For my first 20 years we never talked about sharks,” Skomal said.

Great whites travel to the Cape to prey on the area’s large population of gray seals. The last fatal shark attack in Massachusetts was in 1937, and if one of the animals does bite a human, Skomal said it’s most likely a case of “mistaken identity.”

“You know, biting the person thinking that it might be a normal prey item like a seal. Typically, the shark won’t eat the person,” Skomal said. “As a result, though, white sharks have very big jaws and sharp teeth, and cause traumatic injuries, and those kinds of traumatic injuries could lead to fatality.”

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

Handling and Release of Prohibited Atlantic Sharks

June 21, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries has released a new video to help anglers identify dusky and other prohibited shark species. Focused on safe handling and release of sharks and current fishing regulations, the video accompanies a suite of educational materials. We have updated our Recreational Shark Identification and Regulations Placard, added a new Prohibited Shark Identification Placard, and updated our handling and release brochure. All of these materials are available for download.

New Regulations

Beginning January 1, 2018, recreational fishermen, including charter/headboat fishermen that fish for, retain, posses, or land sharks in federal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean must have a valid “shark endorsement” added to their HMS permit. Atlantic tunas General category and Swordfish General Commercial permit holders must also have a shark endorsement for registered tournaments. The video is required viewing for permit holders requesting the shark endorsement, and will be followed by a brief, educational quiz.

We Need You

Help us ensure the recovery of dusky and long-term sustainability of all Atlantic sharks. Please share this video and related materials to spread the word and educate fellow recreational fishermen. For further information, contact Cliff Hutt (Cliff.Hutt@noaa.gov) or Karyl Brewster-Geisz (Karyl.Brewster-Geisz@noaa.gov) or visit our website.

Sharks should be happy about new Google Earth survey of seal populations

June 14, 2017 — Gray seals are booming. They’ve flocked to coastal Massachusetts, where hunters once killed the animals wholesale — a dead seal’s nose could fetch a $5 reward in the 1960s.

Twenty years ago, there were about 2,000 seals near Cape Cod and Nantucket. A new estimate, published Wednesday in the journal Bioscience, suggests there are now as many as 50,000.

‘‘We should be celebrating the recovery of gray seals as a conservation success,’’ said David Johnston, an author of the study and marine biologist at Duke University .

Where seals go, sharks often follow. Great white sightings in Cape Cod increased from 80 in 2014 to 147 in 2016. Johnston said the shark spike may be linked to the seals. ‘‘One of our tagged animals was killed by a white shark,’’ he said.

Maine and Massachusetts once placed bounties on seals because fishermen feared they would gobble up valuable fish such as cod. (There is little evidence that seals actually compete with fishermen, Johnston said.) The century-long bounty hunt claimed up to 135,000 animals.

The seals bounced back after 1972’s Marine Mammal Protection Act outlawed the killings. ‘‘I’m a firm believer if you just stop doing bad things to wildlife they will recover,’’ Johnston said. The seals’ recovery raised a question infrequently asked in conservation: What happens after success?

‘‘We haven’t done a great job of preparing people,’’ he said, ‘‘that they would be back again.’’

Part of that means quantifying the success. In 2011, a National Marine Fisheries Service aerial survey estimated 15,000 seals swam in southeastern Massachusetts waters.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

White sharks rebound in California

June 10, 2017 — Most of the millions of beachgoers who flock to southern California’s coast never notice the baby sharks swimming laps just offshore, but that’s starting to change.

The sharks aren’t on the prowl for sunblock-glazed snacks: the Southern California Bight – the coastal waters from Santa Barbara to the U.S.-Mexico border – is a white shark nursery.

It’s where the young predators hide out, stay warm, and learn to hunt, before joining adults in deeper seas.

Though their species has long been declining, baby white sharks are making a surprising comeback in the Bight.

Their return tells a bigger environmental success story: federal and state regulations stretching back 40 years have curtailed pollution and repaired the marine food web that includes white sharks (formerly called great white sharks). “You can’t have an ecosystem that’s badly damaged and have predators,” Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University-Long Beach, says.

The Bight’s baby white sharks declined for a number of reasons, Lowe says: poor water quality, their decimation as gillnetting bycatch, and the near-extirpation of the prey that adult sharks rely on.

Likewise, no single environmental law saved them. Instead, a suite of regulations enacted from the 1970s to the mid 1990s helped restore southern California’s coastal ecosystem enough for its white shark nursery to eventually start recovering.

Read the full story at Business Insider