Plumbing the Depths

Captain Bill Amaru has seen a lot of changes in 40 years on the ocean. One of the biggest is warming waters, in part prompting talk about changing the name of Cape Cod to Cape Dogfish or Cape Skate.
“In the past, great schools of cod existed on our shores,” he said. “Now, if you order cod, it is probably not a domestic cod fish.”
Amaru was speaking at Wellfleet Preservation Hall on a panel convened by Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer, who is holding listening sessions to hear about how climate change has impacted lives and businesses.

When Caitlin “Caity” Townsend was in elementary school she divided her free time between her family’s seafood business on Cabral Wharf in Provincetown and her dad’s lobster boat.
Close to 20 years later, her world has widened to fishing for salmon in Alaska, selling sockeye on the Cape, recycling fishing gear, as well as advocacy, but lobstering with her dad is still at the heart of it.

“So you’re going on an acid trip?” asked my captain, Dean Pesante, as we threw lines aboard the gillnetter F/V Oceana and prepared to head out of Point Judith Harbor into Rhode Island Sound to haul gear one late July morning.
Acid trip? It took me a moment, then I remembered: The afternoon before, I had looped him in on a group text as I tried to find a fill-in for August 13, when I hoped to join a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute as a fishing industry observer for their “Locking Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope” (LOC-NESS) research cruise.  

When Samuel de Champlain visited Wellfleet Harbor in 1606, he named the place “Port aux Huitres,” Port of Oysters.

A lot has changed, but the name still rings true.  

“Oysters are ingrained into the fabric of our community,” said Nancy Civetta, Wellfleet shellfish constable. “We prioritize that way of life.”

Jon Grabowski played a video of a cute baby lobster in a tank, scuttling out of his rocky hideaway only to be quickly eaten by a blue crab with a black sea bass looking on.
The stuff of nightmares, joked Grabowski, professor and assistant director at Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center. Grabowski, along with several other researchers, was speaking as part of the National Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative, meant to address critical knowledge gaps about lobster in a changing ocean.
The initiative was launched in 2019 and focuses on increasing the industry’s resilience to biological, economic, and social impacts of ecosystem change.

Captain Dean Karoblis has a close relationship with the John Deere engine that powers his fishing vessel Molly May. He trusts it; as with all fishermen that’s crucial, for lobstermen perhaps even more so.
“Everything I fish is right whale critical habitat,” he said, adding the season is so short, missed days are disastrous. “If any lobsterman is down and out when it’s on, you’re screwed.”
Still, he is willing to experiment with something new.

Known as much for its shifting sands as 66 miles of coastline, Chatham relies on dredging and town officials believed they had permits in hand to do the required work.
“We thought we were approaching the finish line, but we were not,” said Greg Berman, Chatham’s director of natural resources. “We are hitting our heads against the wall.”
Communication delays with regulatory agencies meant they discovered last-minute they weren’t going to get a comprehensive dredging permit. The town barely had time to re-direct essential projects out of the larger permit application.

By Doreen Leggett For about a year, Captain Glen LeGeyt carved out half an hour, twice a month, to step inside the shucking house of his vessel the Tricia Lynn and write down precise measurements, as well as take multiple pictures, of a dozen or so scallops his crew...

Fishermen’s Alliance Policy Director Aubrey Church, Shelley Edmundson, Executive Director of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, and Joshua Reitsma from WHOI Sea Grant Program and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, joined Mindy Todd from National Public Radio WCAI’s public affairs show “The Point” to explore fishing and aquaculture. It was a great conversation, ranging from federal cuts to how fishing permits work. Below is an edited version. 
Mindy Todd: Commercial fishing has been part of the cultural and economic fabric of this region for generations. Fishing has always been hard work, but changes to the climate, water quality, fish stocks and restrictions on where, when and how fin and shellfish are caught have made the profession even more challenging.  
What are the major fishing ports on Cape and how has that changed?