Fishing
Three years ago, the Nantucket bay scallop harvest suddenly more than doubled in size, from around 15,000 bushels to more than 32,000. It was the year the industry ate its future.
The following season the harvest crashed. The total catch in 2005-06 was one-sixth as large — just 5,500 bushels. It was even worse last season, when fewer than 4,000 bushels were hauled up, the lowest tally since they began keeping records 30 years earlier.
The next time you sit down to a steaming bowl of clam chowder, consider this: your meal may be older then you are. Much, much older.
Indeed ocean quahaugs, often used in chowder, are probably the longest-lived animals on the planet. Earlier this year, researchers dredged up a 405-year-old quahaug from the frigid waters off Iceland. They did not eat it.
For the second week in a row, Chilmark selectmen on Tuesday addressed the continuing struggles of commercial fishermen on the Menemsha harborfront and the state of the town fishing industry.
A number of fishermen, members of the shellfish advisory committee and the town harbor master turned out to discuss rising fuel prices and hear a plan to survey the biology of Menemsha Pond in an effort to enhance fish stock.
The Menemsha harborfront, long defined by a history of providing open dock space for working draggers and lobstermen, must be protected, a vocal gathering of Chilmark fishermen told their selectmen early this week. The fishing industry is ailing and the harborfront endangered, they said.
“In a few years, there will be no fishermen,” warned Louis S. Larsen Sr.
An eye-popping derby to be sure but no eyes popped wider than junior angler Chris Morris’s when his key sprung open the padlock that awarded him th
Chef Chris Schlesinger of the East Coast Grill & Raw Bar in Cambridge is a self-described purist. His menus feature fish caught in local waters and produce from nearby farms. He offers what is in season and the dishes rotate accordingly. One constant is the oyster.