Articles
To develop artificial bait, you need to know what haddock eat
Like people, fish can be finicky eaters. Given a choice between herring and clams, a cod will go for the clams. Its next preference is squid (that’s calamari to you and me). On the other hand, a haddock will eat just about anything you put in front of it, even sausage — but we’ll get
For Maine’s alewives, the possibilities are as large as the threats
As closely woven into the fabric of eastern Maine’s economy as it is to the region’s ecology, the steady decline of alewives, sometimes called river herring, prompts some fishermen and scientists to talk about the loss in both social and biological terms. “If you want dollar-a-pound codfish and haddock again, then you need to take
Lobstermen, scientists study lobster mystery with innovative gear
The lobster is New England’s most commercially valuable marine resource (landings bring in the neighborhood of $250 million annually). Add to that figure the crustacean’s unquantifiable worth as a marketing icon and you¹ll begin to understand why it’s important to forecast the health of future crops. It’s a task that falls somewhere between art and
Expermental nets “sort” haddock from cod
The reason it has been so difficult to restore New England’s commercial groundfishery without completely bankrupting New England’s commercial fishermen can be summarized in a few sentences: *More than a dozen species comprise the fishery and inhabit the same layer of water near the ocean floor. *Some of these stocks are abundant; some are not.
Dogfish Fishermen, scientists see different problems
If you talk to New England commercial fishermen long enough, sooner or later, you¹ll hear their opinion on dogfish. Rarely is it flattering. Distributed from Labrador to Florida, dogfish, known by the scientific name Squalus acantias, migrate northward to the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank in summer. When this happens, they come in droves
Monkfish could offer fishermen market stability
I don’t think I’ll get many angry letters if I describe the monkfish as one of the homeliest creatures in the northwest Atlantic, if not the homeliest. Also known as goosefish, the monkfish is a member of the anglerfish family Lophiidae, and is distinguished by a fleshy appendage, known as the illicium, that protrudes from
Newfoundland Flume Tank is World’s Largest
At 13 feet deep by 26 feet wide by 72 feet long, the flume tank at Memorial University’s Marine Institute in St. John’s, Newfoundland, is the largest in the world, circulating some 450,000 gallons of water at up to six feet per second through a complex system of propellers, pumps, and pipes to mimic flowing
Threatened resources Maine’s bloodworm fishery faces an uncertain future
They’re certainly not the most glamorous of Maine’s marine resources, but last year over $7.9 million worth of baitworms were harvested, making bloodworms and sandworms the state’s fourth-most-valuable fishery – more lucrative even than cod or crab, scallops or sea urchins. But some worm watchers are concerned that a lack of regulations and scientific understanding