Saving Seafood

Ocean conflicts are growing. A new lab at UMass Dartmouth studies how we share the sea

June 9, 2026 — Humans put many demands on the ocean — for fishing, shipping, raw materials, and more. Those demands can threaten marine life and the communities that depend on local fisheries. A new lab at UMass Dartmouth aims to help us share the ocean. CAI’s Jennette Barnes takes us there.

“Over here, we’ve got field supplies.”

Assistant Professor Melissa Cronin is showing me around the room. It has a work table, white boards on the walls, supply cabinets, and a refrigerator.

What we’re really in this room to see, though, are the manta tails.

She invites me to put on some gloves.

“It’s just really … so you don’t, like, shed skin cells,” she says. “And I’ll just show you what we’ve got in here.”

She brings out a plastic tube, labeled with the name of a fishing boat. She uncaps the tube and gently pours a pile of white silica beads onto a piece of bubble wrap.

“And here’s the tail.”

Among the beads sits a dried piece of a manta ray tail. It looks like a short length of dark-gray wire.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Scientists and fishermen join forces to study Atlantic cod

June 4, 2026 — After ten days at sea, researchers from the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) have returned from the Spring 2026 Gulf of Maine video trawl survey with encouraging early signs for one of New England’s most iconic fish species: Atlantic cod.

Conducted in partnership with commercial fishermen and supported by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the survey uses a unique open cod end video method developed by SMAST researchers to observe fish populations with minimal impact. The collaborative project reflects the growing role of industry-science partnerships in fisheries research while generating data that can help improve understanding and management of Gulf of Maine fish stocks.

The team departed May 6 and returned May 15 aboard the F/V Justice, owned by New Bedford commercial fisherman Danny Eilertsen. The vessel crew included Captain Robert Kohl, First Mate Tim Barrett, and Andrew Earle, who served as cook and deckhand. SMAST’s scientific team included Chief Scientist Dr. Nicholas Calabrese, PhD student Stephanie Merhoff, and MS student Helena Norton. On the first day of the survey, a film crew joined the expedition to collect footage for a documentary film about the historical and ongoing importance of the fishing and seafood industry in Boston and Massachusetts. This short film will be a centerpiece for the Boston Fisheries Museum’s upcoming exhibit during Sail Boston.

Read the full article at UMass Dartmouth

MASSACHUSETTS: Collaborative research group from SMAST, COE, and CCB wins $1.4M grant from Mass Tech Collaborative

June 4, 2026 — A UMass Dartmouth team spanning the School for Marine Science and Technology, the College of Engineering, and the Charlton College of Business recently received a $1.4M grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to create a “digital twin” for the MA shellfish aquaculture industry.

A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical system. Using state-of-the-art tools like smart sensors, autonomous vehicles, and predictive artificial intelligence, the digital twin will provide real-time data insights for oyster growers about their operations, allowing them to make proactive management decisions. Beyond increasing shellfish aquaculture productivity, safety, and sustainability, the digital twin system also aims to turn data into a consumer-facing narrative that will position Massachusetts oysters as a premium sustainable seafood product.

“This academic/industry partnership is a key part of our mission at UMass Dartmouth as a public university,” said Professor of Estuarine & Ocean Sciences Miles Sundermeyer.  “It is especially important as many of these growers are small businesses who may not otherwise have the resources to invest in this level of data collection and analysis.”

Read the full article at UMass Dartmouth

 

UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford Port Authority to study effects of wind industry on commercial fishing

November 13, 2025 — Researchers from UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology plan to study how the commercial fishing and wind energy industries coexist off the coast of Massachusetts. The goal is to address one of the major uncertainties in trying to manage offshore fisheries and offshore wind – how to safely fish near a windfarm.

The project will track the behavior and position of fishing vessels and their gear in areas near offshore wind farms. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is funding the research with a $419,000 grant.

Read the full article at Ocean State Media

UMassD-SMAST partners with New Bedford Port Authority to study the effects of wind energy areas on commercial fishing operations

November 3, 2025 — The UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) is partnering with the New Bedford Port Authority on a project titled “Tracking and Modeling the Behavior and Position of Fishing Vessels and Their Towed Gears in Wind Energy Areas.” The project is funded by a $419,462 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC).

The study will examine how commercial fishing vessels and gear operate within and around offshore wind energy areas to better understand potential impacts and identify ways to support safe, sustainable coexistence between the fishing and wind industries.

SMAST was selected as a key partner for its longstanding reputation in collaborative fisheries research and its strong connections to the commercial fishing community as well as its leadership in studying the impacts of wind farms on fisheries. Together, SMAST and the NBPA will combine practical experience and scientific analysis to help shape offshore wind development that supports both economic growth and ocean sustainability.

Read the full article at UMass Dartmouth

New study looks to how wind projects will change ocean

August 27, 2024 — Plans to build hundreds or even thousands of offshore wind turbines off the U.S. East Coast “will be the biggest change to the sea floor in the area since the last Ice Age ended about 14,000 years ago,” according to scientists.

Around 20 offshore wind lease areas are now planned for mainly soft bottom of sand or mud, with scattered hard substrate of gravel, cobble and rock, according to their recently published study.

As wind turbine arrays are built, they will add massive steel towers, electric power cables, and millions of tons of rock to protect the new industrial infrastructure.

“Wind farms will add a lot of hard structures to these areas, potentially altering the habitat and species that inhabit these areas, which will likely affect fisheries,” wrote the research team led by Kevin Stokesbury, dean of the School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

In its natural state, “the sand will move around but it doesn’t change the community” of marine life living there, said Stokesbury. Off the Mid-Atlantic coast particularly, the wave-swept sand bottom “is like the Great Plains before development,” he said.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

2022 NOAA Northeast Sea Scallop Survey Results

June 28, 2022 — The NOAA Fisheries Integrated Sea Scallop and Habcam Research Survey is in the books for 2022. Scientists and crew completed their work aboard the University of Delaware’s R/V Hugh R. Sharp on June 13, 2022.

The Atlantic sea scallop population is surveyed every summer by NOAA Fisheries and partnering research groups. This year those partners are the Coonamessett Farm Foundation, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology. Each partner surveys an assigned area using similar methods and a standardized survey design. Here, we are reporting results for the survey areas allocated to the NOAA Fisheries-based effort, led by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Resulting data are used for fishery stock assessments, fishery management, and biological studies. Sea scallops are one of the most valuable commercial fishery species in the nation.

Leg 1 of the survey was conducted May 14 to 23 off the Mid-Atlantic and southern Georges Bank. Researchers deployed the stereo camera and sensor system known as Habcam V4.

Leg 2 was conducted from May 25 to June 3, and Leg 3 operated from June 5 to June 13. On these legs, we deployed both Habcam V4 and a scallop dredge. The dredge is a standardized 8-foot wide New Bedford sea scallop dredge that collects sea scallops for biological analyses.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

New research suggests cod, New England’s founding fish, may be returning to local waters

May 5, 2022 — “For the first time in about 20 years we’ve seen and are tracking a successful year class of cod, and they seem to be growing at a very good rate,” said Kevin Stokesbury, a fisheries science professor at UMass Dartmouth leading a multi-year survey of codfish in the Gulf of Maine.

Stokesbury has a history of using scientific innovation to produce new findings that upend fishing regulations. In the 1990s, he devised a new way of counting scallops that helped open up a tightly regulated fishery.

A typical government-led survey determines scallop numbers by dredging the ocean floor, counting the scallops it pulls up, and estimating what percentage that is of the total scallops in the sample area. Stokesbury’s surveys rely on pictures of the ocean floor instead. A team of his undergraduates count all the scallops in their sample areas one-by-one, eliminating much of the guesswork.

Stokesbury’s method for counting scallops was peer reviewed and eventually incorporated into the government’s periodic stock assessments, which form the basis of fishing regulations in America. In the early 2000s, regulators had already suspected scallops were rebounding to some extent, but Stokesbury’s findings upended what they had been saying for years.

“They thought there were two to three times as many scallops in there,” Stokesbury said, “and there were actually about 14 times as many.”

But the UMass Dartmouth scientist has his own critics when it comes to codfish. One of them has an office down the hall from him.

Professor Steve Cadrin, a fisheries scientist leading a periodic review of how the government assesses cod stocks, said the cod fishery has opened up prematurely once before.

“We’ve seen other year classes that have not survived,” Cadrin said.

Some years, Cadrin said NOAA’s projections have been overly optimistic.

“They led to continued overfishing and the stock hasn’t rebuilt,” Cadrin said. “It’s a lot more than just a heartbreak. There’s been a lot of fishery restrictions because of that.”

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio

Vineyard Wind paying UMass scientists to survey ocean area it’s leasing

May 24, 2021 — The company that intends to build a $2.8 billion offshore wind project south of Martha’s Vineyard is paying the UMass Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association about $2 million a year to survey the sea floor before, during and after construction and see what impact the project has on the ocean.

Vineyard Wind has contracted with the School for Marine Science and Technology to send scientists out on local lobster and fishing vessels to measure, tag and count the lobsters and fish they catch before releasing them back into the ocean. The data they collect will establish a baseline of what sea life inhabits the 167,000 acres of ocean that the company is leasing, as well as an adjacent area for comparison.

“We have a strong interest in using local mariners with local knowledge as much as possible,” said Andrew Doba, a Vineyard Wind spokesman.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

UMass Dartmouth and Farm to Institution New England Host Virtual Sea Summit

December 3, 2020 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

How can New England institutions better leverage their influence to support local seafood and seafood producers? With the nation’s top dollar fishing port in New Bedford, why do we not see more local fish on the menu at colleges and other institutions? Can our institutional supply chains take advantage of underutilized species to help address these issues?

UMass Dartmouth and Farm to Institution New England welcome you to attend an online Sea Summit focused on these questions. Join us for an engaging panel and stakeholder dialogue, where speakers will share how a team of colleges and supply chain partners tackled these issues through a 2018 New England Food Vision Prize from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. Learn more about the challenges and opportunities of producing and sourcing farmed kelp and underutilized fish species in New England. Speakers will also share how they worked to bring underutilized species into community and university dining programs, even with the added challenges presented by a global pandemic.

The goal of the Sea Summit is to educate and unite anyone who is interested in: local and sustainable purchasing, procurement, food service operations, supply chains, and sustainable seafood. This event will highlight the importance of local food initiatives, and encourage restaurants, hospitals, schools, colleges, and universities to help our region produce at least 50% of our food by 2060.

About the New England Food Vision Prize

The New England Food Vision Prize was designed by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation to accelerate progress towards the New England Food Vision, a bold vision that calls for our region to produce at least 50% of our food by 2060, while supporting healthy food for all, sustainable farming and fishing, and thriving communities.

Registration details coming soon.

Questions? Contact Kirby Roberts, kroberts1@umassd.edu.