Postcard From Brian - Spain
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Postcards from Brian – Spain’s Mattanza

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Categories: Postcards from Brian

As he photographs our oceans for National Geographic, Brian Skerry often dives in to fishing traditions around the world. Brian recently sent us this postcard from Spain, where he’s photographing a yearly practice called mattanza. For more than a thousand years, Spanish fishermen have set up a maze of nets known as almadraba in the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow stretch of water between Spain and Morocco. The nets catch Atlantic bluefin tuna as they swim through the strait to return to their Mediterranean spawning grounds.

This dramatic photo, taken by Jeff Wildermuth, shows Brian snapping pictures as fishermen haul in their nets, laden with large, beautiful tuna. (Brian has been underwater with tuna as well—check out his awestruck account of that experience.) The largest Atlantic bluefin can grow to be almost 15 feet long and weigh over 1000 pounds, and they swim at up to 40 mph. Just like Brian, their travels take them from one side of the ocean to the other. Atlantic bluefin spawn in two separate locations—the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico—but scientists have tracked many tuna crossing the Atlantic, suggesting eastern and western tuna populations probably aren’t distinct.

Fishermen here in New England catch bluefin tuna, too. They most commonly use a rod and reel in their search for the lucrative fish, which can fetch thousands of dollars apiece. Atlantic bluefin tuna are a highly depleted species—estimates suggest stocks have declined nearly 70 percent since 1970, although recent indicators suggest that the population may be rebuilding. Because of their migratory nature, Atlantic bluefin are carefully regulated by a transatlantic group called the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

We love seeing our blue planet through Brian’s travels, whether it’s bluefin tuna in Spain, farmed carp in China, or the incredible abundance of sea life right here in New England.

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Cape Cod National Seashore
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Oil and Water Don’t Mix

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Categories: CLF Scoop | Events/Calendar

With warming seas and ocean acidification putting unprecedented pressure on our already heavily fished, shipped, and polluted coastal areas, adding the extreme pressures of seismic testing and offshore oil drilling, which we keep hearing are supposed to be safe and foolproof, but never really are, seems like a foolhardy move.

There are plenty of other options for developing offshore energy that will not put us at such high risk of horrible toxic spills and deadly-to-wildlife noise. We don’t want dead or deformed fish, whales, and dolphins in our ocean, and tar balls on beaches where our kids build sand castles. We have some of America’s most beautiful coastal areas and amazing ocean life here in New England, and we need to keep them that way.

What can you do to help? Be part of a global campaign by joining one of your local Hands Across the Sand events this Saturday, May 18th, 12 PM local time, to say “No” to dirty fossil fuels and “Yes” to clean, renewable energy. Hands Across the Sand started in Florida in 2010, and has rapidly grown into a major global campaign. The idea is simple – join your fellow ocean champions on the beach, lock hands, and unite in opposition to dirty energy.

Have someone take a picture and post it to the Hands Across the Sands Flickr page (and, if you’re in New England, please share your photos with us, too!), and send it to your elected officials for even greater impact. Visit the Hands Across the Sand page to find a local even or organize your own.

Fishermen, beach-goers, surfers, and conservation groups agree – oil drilling has no place in New England’s ocean. So take a stand and put your Hands Across the Sand!

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Boston Harbor Striped Bass
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Striped Bass in Boston Harbor

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Categories: Creature Features

Ben Carmichael is CLF’s Senior Communications Manager. This post was originally published at his New England fly fishing blog http://www.newenglandonthefly.com/

In a college course on pre-Socratic philosophy, a teacher summed up one of the teachings of Heraclitus by saying: “Through suffering comes beauty.” Tonight, as I saw the first stripers of my year landed around me, that certainly was the case.

The night began promisingly: a good tide, aligning with the end of the work day, and light drizzles throughout the day — conditions which, according to one, had yielded fish in the past at this spot. At lunch, the same friend had walked to the Charles River waterfront and cast a line. The stripers that followed his fly to the shore were all the proof we needed to end speculation: Fish were going to be caught this night.

But then it all seemed to fall apart. In the time it took me to walk from my office at Downtown Crossing to Beacon Hill, I got soaked. My khakis were damp dishcloths and my rain jacket a wet sheet of nylon by the time I got to my friend’s stoop. Lighting and thunder was shaking the sky. And still the rain came, in torrents. It was so heavy one suggested we cast a line into the street; it was, by my estimate, deeper than a flat on which I had hooked a bonefish, and deeper still than some shallows that I’ve seen hold trout.

Sitting on his stoop, beer in hand, it seemed like that would be our fishing — more of the kind we had done all winter: banter fishing, in jokes to delay the gratification of finally feeling a pull. As my guide the weekend before in Boca Grande had said, “the tug is the drug,” and I hadn’t felt the tug of a fish in months. I was on hard times, and the rain wasn’t helping.

But after only a short drive we cleared the bad weather and found clear skies and calm air over an incoming tide. The water was clear, and the temperature good. It was as though the weather had never marked this spot. I felt buoyed. Fish were going to be caught this night.

And so it was. The beautiful striper above was caught on the second cast. Another was landed. And yet another. For me, even though I went fishless, a night like this starts the unquestionable start to the season. And proof that a little suffering goes a long way to making the tug more pleasant, the beer colder, and the scenery more beautiful.

Here are some shots from the night. I’ll be sharing more throughout the season.

striped bass boston harbor

Landing what would be the world’s smallest striped bass, at around 8″.

 

 

striped bass boston harbor fly fishing

Fighting a striped bass around Boston Harbor. Photo by Ben Carmichael.

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Blue Shark, Rhode Island
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Announcing Our April Photo Contest Winner!

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Categories: Photo Contest

Look at that cute face! We are thrilled to announce that sharks have finally made it into our photo contest winner’s circle. Congratulations to Michel Labrecque for this wonderful picture of a charismatic blue shark, taken off the Rhode Island coast. If you’ve been reading our blog over the past year you know we love to celebrate the really big fish in our ocean, and Michel has captured this inquisitive shark with grace and beauty.

According to Brian Skerry, blue sharks are especially cooperative subjects, and will often come peer into his camera lens. He says, for the most part, they have always been very polite (unlike the “hyper and jacked up” makos – who he loves diving with nonetheless).

The blue shark in this picture does seem very curious. And I know you are all curious, too, about when there will be more sharks! Wonder no more – according to the Shark Week 2013 Countdown Clock, we only have 95 days to go!

Do you have a great photo of New England’s oceans to share?  Enter our photo contest! Each month, Brian Skerry will lead our team of judges to select a winner, who will receive a copy of Brian’s book Ocean Soul.

Entering is easy! Explore New England’s oceans, take some photographs and then share them with our online community on Flickr™. All you need to do is add your photos to the New England Ocean Odyssey group and tag them “PhotoContestNEOO”. Find out more here.

Be sure to check our our New England Ocean Odyssey Facebook page where we’ll be posting the honorable mentions from the April photo contest over the next few days.

We look forward to seeing your photos!

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NEFSC researcher Larry Alade holds a tagged monkfish
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Monkfish Look Like They Could Bite Your Foot Off

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Categories: Creature Features | Ocean Oddities

This fish looks like it was designed by Stephen King, with its angular gaping mouth, needle-like teeth, and beady eyes. Imagine your reaction if you were enjoying a refreshing dip in the ocean then you looked down and saw that face staring up at you. I pride myself on surfing with the sharks in the bracing New England ocean, but seeing that crazy face by my feet might just leave me unhinged for a minute. These fish range throughout the North Atlantic, and as far south as Florida, so I know they’re around.

Really, though, your odds of encountering a monkfish are very low and if you did, they probably wouldn’t attack you. They usually hang out on the ocean floor, where they lie in wait, lure in prey with a filament-like “esca” that sprouts from between their eyes, and snatch up whatever unfortunate little fish happens to show interest.

As effective as this strategy seems to be, this bottom-dweller does get up near the surface every now and then – to eat birds. Researchers have recently discovered little puffins in the bellies of monkfish that were caught between 275 and 495 feet down, off the coast of Chatham, MA. Monkfish fish get around! And, I will confess, I didn’t even know we had puffins in New England.

I would really love to see some Crittercam  footage of a monkfish swimming up from the dark, cold depths and rushing a cute little unsuspecting puffin. Pow! Like a shark attack, but smaller and uglier. I’m going to be thinking about this the next time my feet are dangling off my surfboard (although researchers think the puffins were diving down 10 or 20 feet when the monkfish nabbed them). Still – as if the shark anxiety wasn’t bad enough.

Here are some other interesting monkfish facts (these and more can be found in this fact sheet from World Wildlife Fund).

  • Monkfish are also called goosefish, bellyfish, allmouth, and lawyer (that last one seems a little harsh).
  • These fish have been found almost 3,000 feet down.
  • They can eat things larger than they are, and are not very picky. Cod, lobster, and birds are all fair game.
  • Monkfish was not considered marketable in the U.S., until a government funded marketing campaign convinced people they were missing out on something that Europeans had been onto for a while.

Julia Child and a large monkfish. © copyright 2000-2007 Getty Images, Inc. [Steve Hansen/TimePix]

Julia Child and a large monkfish. Copyright 2000-2007 Getty Images, Inc. [Steve Hansen/TimePix]

 While monkfish have yet to show any interest in eating us, we do seem to enjoy eating them. In New England alone, commercial landings have averaged 35 million pounds a year since 1990. Hopefully this important and unique Gulf of Maine dweller will be able to withstand the  fishing pressure that is now upon them. Given the state of collapse of our cod fishery, healthier bottom dwelling fish stocks are being increasingly targeted to help sustain the fleet. This sort of action might backfire if populations of monkfish and other groundfish begin to plummet as the cod have, leaving fishermen with less and less. Worse, there are pressures on groundfish other than fishing, like warming seas and ocean acidification, which make it important that we set some habitat aside for our ocean ecosystems to adapt and build resiliency to our changing environment.

As odd looking and voracious as monkfish are, they are an important part of our New England ocean ecosystem. I hope that our fisheries managers and researches keep tabs on monkfish populations so we don’t imperil this true ocean oddity. Especially since I haven’t seen that Crittercam footage yet.

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