Roger Warburton: What lobsters tell us about climate change
If present trends continue, by the end of the century, the cost of global warming could be as high as $1 billion annually for Providence County, R.I., alone, according to data from a 2017 research paper. That’s about $1,600 per person per year. Every year.
But, before we talk about the future, let’s discuss the economic damage that has already occurred in Rhode Island because of warming temperatures.
Like rich Bostonians, Rhode Island’s lobsters have moved to Maine. In 2018, Maine landed 121 million pounds of lobsters, valued at more than $491 million, and up 11 million pounds from 2017. It wasn’t always so.
Andrew Pershing, an oceanographer with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, has noted that lobsters have migrated north as climate change warms the ocean. In Rhode Island, for instance, days when the water temperature of Narragansett Bay is 80 degrees or higher are becoming more common. From 1960 to 2015, the bay’s mean surface water temperatures rose by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit, according to research data.
A 2018 research paper Pershing co-authored said ocean temperatures have risen to levels that are favorable for lobsters off northern New England and Canada but inhospitable for them in southern New England. The research found that warming waters, ecosystem changes, and differences in conservation efforts led to the simultaneous collapse of the lobster fishery in southern New England and record-breaking landings in the Gulf of Maine.
He told Science News last year that with rocky bottoms, kelp and other things that lobsters love, climate change has turned the Gulf of Maine into a “paradise for lobsters.”
However, in the formerly strong lobster fishing grounds of Rhode Island, the situation is grim. South of Cape Cod, the lobster catch fell from a peak of about 22 million pounds in 1997 to about 3.3 million pounds in 2013, according to the 2018 paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Lobsters provide interesting lessons on the impact of the climate crisis.
A conservation program called V-notching helped protect Maine’s lobster population. “Starting a similar conservation program earlier in southern New England would have helped insulate them from the hot water they’ve experienced over the last couple of decades,” Malin Pinsky, a marine scientist with Rutgers University, told Boston.com two years ago.
Rhode Island’s lack of conservation efforts in the face of the growing climate crisis contributed to the collapse of its lobster fishery. Doing nothing or too little in the face of a changing climate can be economically devastating.
Another existing, and growing, threat to the economic health of Rhode Island comes from Lyme disease, which has increased by more than 300 percent across the Northeast since 2001. A changing climate is a big reason why. There is a growing body of evidence showing that climate change may affect the incidence and prevalence of certain vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, malaria, dengue, and West Nile fever, according to a 2018 study.
Chronic Lyme disease is more widespread and more serious than generally realized. There are some 20,000 cases annually in the Northeast and each averages about $4,400 in medical costs. Most Lyme disease patients who are diagnosed and treated early can fully recover. But, an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent suffer from chronically persistent and disabling symptoms. The number of such chronic cases may approach 30,000 to 60,000 annually, according to a 2018 white paper.
As the lobsters and the ticks vividly demonstrate, prevention is cheaper than cure. The longer we wait, the more painful, and expensive, the consequences will be.
The aforementioned 2017 study Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change in the United States by world-renown economists and climate scientists projects the impact of climate change for every county in the United States. The results for Rhode Island and its neighbors are summarized in the map to the right, which depicts the estimated economic damage, in millions of dollars annually for each county in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
The data make clear that the economic damage will not be uniformly distributed. Some counties, such as Providence County, will be hit much harder than others. It also may seem that the southern counties will suffer much less. But that isn’t quite true, as graph below shows. The damage per person per year is projected to be substantial.
The total economic damage to Rhode Island, by 2080, could result in a 2 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP). To put that in context, during the Great Recession of 2008-2010, there was only one year of GDP decline: minus 2.5 percent in 2009. By 2010, GDP had bounced back to positive growth, at 2.6 percent.
Therefore, the impact of a 2 percent hit to Rhode Island’s GDP from the climate crisis could look like the recession of 2009, only becoming permanent, continuing year after year. Also, it won’t all happen in 2080, the damage will continually get worse.
The economic damage is projected to come from more frequent and intense storms; sea-level rise; increased rainfall resulting in more flooding; higher temperatures, especially in the summer; drought that leads to lower crop yields; increased crime.
In addition, essential infrastructure will be impacted, including water supplies and water treatment facilities. Ecosystems, such as forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands, will also suffer, and that will impact human quality of life.
In the coming two weeks, we will describe how each Rhode Island county faces different levels of the above threats. As a result, each county needs to develop appropriate mitigation strategies.
The damages from the climate crisis will place major strains on public-sector budgets. However, much of the economic damage will be felt by individuals and families through poorer health, rising energy costs, increased health-care premiums, and decreased job security.
As always, prevention is cheaper, and more effective, than cure. Inaction on climate change will be the most expensive policy option.
The lobsters should teach us a valuable lesson: conservation measures based on sound scientific and economic principles could have helped mitigate losses caused by the climate crisis.
Roger Warburton, Ph.D., is a Newport ,R.I., resident. He can be reached at rdh.warburton@gmail.com.
James P. Freeman: A harbor of happiness and hard work
The Lobster Claw, now closed, with a sadly empty parking lot a few weeks ago
Inside The Lobster Claw in the summer of 2019
“The Lobster Claw... still crowded while everyone tries to visit them before they also close. We always hope they will stay open until the first of November, and it is a melancholy day when the signs go up -- CLOSED.”
-- Gladys Taber, in “Autumn ” in My Own Cape Cod (1970)
During the 2019 summer season, The Lobster Claw restaurant, in Orleans, on Cape Cod, seemed to be heading for a celebration of half a century of serving patrons under the ownership of Don and Marylou Berig.
But a few weeks ago, on Aug. 24, the owners posted a message on social media with this surprising news: The “Last Suppah” would be served on Sunday, Sept. 13. The CLOSED sign was going up for good. There would be no more Novembers.
The Lobster Claw was more than a restaurant. And it was more than a “landmark” -- the worthy appraisal given by The Cape Codder, a local weekly newspaper. Through sheer endurance, it was a link between the Olde Cape and the Cape in 2020. Between Patti Page of 1950s and Great Whites.
That is important because history is under assault today. History needs preservation, not cancellation. Even benign history, like a restaurant.
In a world changing so much, The Lobster Claw defined constancy, as so very little changed about it over 50 years. (The same menu design -- a lobster claw cutout -- had been used since the early 1970s; the same radio commercial ran over the Cape airwaves for nearly 35 years.
What in anyone’s life is consistently stable, familiar and friendly? That may account for part of this establishment’s success and its charm. People today cling to the precious few things that don’t change that much, seeking a kind of psychological safe harbor. The Lobster Claw was one of those ports of call. A refuge from the storm -- figuratively and literally. (On Aug. 19, 1991, it was the only restaurant to open in the entire area -- the entire Cape lost power -- as an unwelcome guest, Hurricane Bob, slammed the peninsula; the owners had obtained gas generators before the storm, perhaps anticipating what became their busiest day ever, serving over 1,000 meals.)
The Lobster Claw was steeped in history.
The building that houses the business is over 100 years old. It originally was two separate structures; they were fused together in the 1960s. Their uses were very Cape-centric. For many years, the building on the south side was a wood mill while the other was an old cranberry barn. Train tracks terminated on the northern side of the building allowing the harvest to be hauled off Cape (rain from a northeast gale would sometimes seep through an old sliding door -- used during cranberry-processing seasons -- until it was replaced about 20 years ago). Later modifications allowed for more operating space and gave it a distinctive and unifying presence. A maroon-and-white trim also gave it a warm feel. The dual-gabled roof rather resembled a house. Families would feel at home there. It was hospitable. That was a good starting point.
Sitting down with Don Berig over several days before the final close was an exercise in revelation. I have known him for nearly 35 years; I worked for the him for three summers during the halcyon days of the late 1980s); our respective families have known each other for close to 40 years (most of my family has been in its employ at different stages spanning over 30 years. Berig was tough, fair and quite generous, qualities that have endured for decades. He is more wistful now; nostalgia, gratitude and relief crept over his weathered tanned face and into his Boston-accented speech as I chatted with him. He was running on adrenaline, not exhaustion; the latter would come later. Still, at 81, he showed more energy than most twenty-somethings.
When asked why he decided to enter a business fraught with failure, he simply answered: “I guess I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.”
The Lobster Claw in about 1963, on a very off-season day
The Lobster Claw has been in existence since at least 1963, when it was owned by Iver Johnson. He sold it to Russ Fletcher in 1965. During this time Berig had been the restaurant’s accountant. His father’s accounting business, D. David Berig & Co., out of Boston, served small businesses on and off the Cape, including many restaurants. Fletcher himself was in his mid-60s and had no relatives. According to Berig, Fletcher approached him to buy the business in 1968. Finally, after some fits and starts, Berig became owner on Jan. 3, 1970. The new decade began with the country still mired in the Vietnam conflict and the Dow Jones Industrial Index closing just above 800. The new Lobster Claw opened that year just days before the Beatles broke up.
The exacting science of accounting gave Berig at least one competitive advantage. Like any business, restaurants are about numbers at their core. If the numbers don’t add up the business can’t survive. It’s that simple. So, every single day every delivery was counted and every fish and every bushel was weighed. He would only pay for what was delivered. Data, not desires, drove decisions. That was a big part of the strategy.
There was another important experience.
From 1944 to 1964, Berig’s family had owned and operated a fish market in the Allston section of Boston. He began cutting and weighing all sorts of local fish when he was 13 at the Harvard Seafood Shoppe (now a Korean restaurant). A man who knew math and fish was off to a good start with owning his own seafood restaurant.
Don figured that he would assess things in 1980, when the mortgage would be paid off. That is, if things went well.
Despite having two important factors in Berig’s favor, two others would lend themselves to help the business, too. In fact, they were critical factors to ensuring its success: a Yankee work ethic (presumably inherited from his father, whose formative years were during The Great Depression; he retired at age 89) and a little luck.
The restaurant would open April 1 and usually close in late October, convenient in that it by-passed the bulk of accounting season. Still, for much of Berig’s career during summer months he would leave the Cape on Monday nights for Boston and return by 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons to cook. It was a grueling routine. Berig was a chef-owner before the phrase was coined. He knew that the Cape’s summer season demanded that business operate at maximum efficiency. A grinding work ethic was an absolute necessity. As Berig calmly says, without a hint of hyperbole, “most successful entrepreneurs don’t have days off.”
But Berig was also benefitted from something beyond his control, unforeseen by many in the early 1970s: the intersection of favorable logistics and demographics on Cape Cod.
Before the 1960s, the Cape was a quaint peninsula with a modest tourism trade. Two seeming unrelated events allowed tourism to flourish while keeping much of its natural beauty intact. The Interstate Highway System was authorized in 1956, and the Cape Cod National Seashore was created in 1961. It also helped that Patti Page’s 1957 hit song “Old Cape Cod’’ extoled the virtues of the Cape, and President John F. Kennedy’s summer home graced the shoreline in Hyannis Port.
For The Lobster Claw the effects of these developments weren’t fully realized until the 1970s and 1980s. It was now much easier to drive to the Cape from points west inside and outside of New England. By 1974, the last part of the I-195 extension from Providence to Route 25 in Wareham was completed; in 1987, the final connection diverted traffic out of congested downtown Wareham to the end of I-495. A booming economy in the 1980s and 1990s fueled more visitors and more economic growth. On top of all this, between 1976 and 2000, the average working American took off more than 20 days a year for vacation (today, that number is roughly 13). Finally, as if more luck were needed, the Cape’s year-round population was growing rapidly and could sustain much new business outside July and August.
Alas, Neptune and Mercury -- Roman gods of the sea and commerce, respectively -- could not have delivered better blessings.
Business exploded.
When Berig took over he endeavored to make improvements prudentially over time. He winces now, recalling that frozen fish was served with frozen potato salad on paper plates before he bought the place. So, making the experience better for customers was a priority but would happen gradually, all within a sensible budget while maintaining a reasonable profit margin. Competition would also push those efforts.
One early competitor was a worthy one and just up the street. Within eyesight of The Lobster Claw stood a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. Opened in 1935, that particular Ho-Jo’s was already famous because it was the first franchised operation in what would become a food and lodging empire. But the destructive creation of capitalism lead to one of two outcomes for businesses: growth or death. In 1979, Howard Johnson’s surrendered to the second outcome. The Orleans location was sold to its local general manager and later renamed Adam’s Rib.
Nonetheless, being neither national or local, the Berig family needed a value proposition that could be marketed with broad-based appeal -- to both townies and tourists alike. The Lobster Claw saw itself as “cheerful,” “immaculate” and “unpretentious.” Those three words captured a narrative. Its very own credo. A daily, if not zealous, execution of those three words gave the credo a kind of street cred.
Enter clever promotion.
From the beginning, Berig deployed a novel marketing campaign on the local radio station, WVLC (1170-AM, 104.7-FM). Instantly memorable, his two daughters, Wendy, and Karen, then 5 and 6, respectively, were showcased in radio hits professing their love of fruits of the sea and promoting their parents’ new venture. They would also participate in the town’s annual Fourth of July parade. Later, in the mid-‘80s, a radio jingle was written that ran right up to shortly before the restaurant closed. Other ads featured longtime employees thanking them for their service. In subsequent years, ads appeared in print and on television, and, most recently, on the Internet. And, as you might expect, advertising was strictly budgeted. No more than 5 percent of revenue could be spent on marketing.
Early on, this business was a family affair. If you were a repeat customer -- many were for decades -- chances were good that you knew someone serving you. That helped affirm stability and durability. Many worked there for decades. Marylou’s brother, Skip Schade, joined in 1970 fresh out of the Army and stayed for over 20 years. Wendy Berig, who could not see above the kitchen counter when she began recording radio ads, pitched in during the entire last week of operations, tending bar, washing dishes, hosting customers. Lucille Eldredge was a holdover from 1963; legend has it that she was more precise than an electronic scale in measuring servings for lobster meat (3.5 ounces). And hostess emeritus Diane Wade -- who is like family -- was a gift from the late 1960s. She only retired last year, at 89.
A hallmark of the Lobster Claw was modesty. It set out to be “unpretentious” and lived up to that ideal to the point where it was part of the culture. In 2020 vernacular that translates to “staying in your lane.” There was never an urge to be anything other than a family restaurant. Things were kept simple. Like the décor.
Murals done by Bob Guillemin
The interior was nautical-themed, done tastefully, not kitschy. Wooden lobster pots acted as tray holders and netting hung from the ceiling. These obvious accoutrements were offset by framed aerial photos of the Cape coastline. The murals were painted by the late Bob Guillemin, otherwise known as “Sidewalk Sam,” one of Boston’s best-known artists. He was commissioned for the work in the 1970s. Now, they are being preserved.
And this cannot be overstated: The owners prepared food and drink that was to be enjoyed, not studied and dissected -- like so much of modern cuisine today. Fried haddock would not be a gastro artsy architectural project. They served clambakes, not concoctions. The kitchen made lobster rolls of the classic Cape Cod variety (think unembellished). The restaurant included a kids’ menu (with Jell-O). It served full entrees and just appetizers, such as steamers and mussels. It welcomed rehearsal dinner parties and parties of one. Shirley Temples co-existed with Lime Rickeys. Fittingly, guests were encouraged to “Talk Loud, Eat Well, Laugh Often.” And they did.
Restaurants, mind you, are not exclusively about absolute numbers; they are also about relative change.
Of course, The Lobster Claw embraced some change. But not too much. Most of the changes involved expanding customer comfort, facilitating growth.
One experiment in the 1970s was initially thought to be a disastrous failure. For two years no one came for the “Early Bird Special” from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (chowder, beverage and dessert). An advertising boost solved the problem and the initiative proved to be wildly successful.
In the early 1980s, the unused second floor in the north building was converted to “Surfboat Lounge.” A 30-foot replica of a Coast Guard rescue craft was built as the centerpiece bar to accommodate a surge in business. Back then one-hour waits were commonplace. (Most nights were controlled chaos but other nights were utter chaos.) The Berigs were also pioneers in merchandising; they added an in-house gift shop around the same time. Air-conditioning was finally installed in stages in the mid-1990s.
Other changes were more subtle but just as consequential. Sometime in the 1980s waitresses wore polyester fire-engine red polo shorts but Marylou detected something wrong. The shirts set the wrong tone, the ambience of the dining rooms started to seem hurried, aggressive, even; they were also uncomfortable to maneuver in, noticeably so, by diners. Those shirts were replaced with ones with softer colors and different fabrics and in that and other ways the balance was brought back, and a more relaxed environment returned. Over the years she also effected menu changes, reflecting the dietary adjustments of Americans. Don Berig may have been the head of the business but Marylou Berig was always its heart and soul. If Don was about data Marylou was about direction. It was a good partnership.
Just one person was given special status in 50-plus years of Berig ownership. Table number nine facing what is now the Stop & Shop complex -- by that old sliding door -- was reserved for lunch each day. Martinis at the ready. That privilege was accorded to the late Gladys Taber. She was an author of 59 books and a columnist for Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle. She died in March 1980. She would recognize the Lobster Claw today but probably not the restaurant industry. Consider: touch screens in place of personal touch, and Facebook pages in place of the Yellow Pages.
COVID-19 did not close The Lobster Claw. Rather, acceptance of the passage of time did. “It’s time to go,” the perennial proprietor said. It was time to retire. Facemasks and social distancing aside, the business has been functioning about as normally as one could expect, vibrant but downsized. Labor Day weekend recalled lines and waits as if were the 1980s all over again. But it had been a challenge. Always adapting to the times, the Berigs converted the gift shop to dining space this year. It allowed for more dining space and helped ensure that safety protocols were adhered to.
Conservative estimates suggest that the global pandemic has resulted in the permanent closure of 20 percent of all restaurants in Massachusetts so far. Devra First, Boston Globe food writer and restaurant critic, believes that the industry is on the precipice. Just as problematic are grandiose ambitions and expectations for new eateries. Restaurants today, like musical acts, aren’t allowed to grow and develop. Their impatient owners feel that must be stars from the start. Further complicating matters are the tricky financial structures used to launch them. Like too much debt financing.
Cape restaurants have not been immune from these events either. But Cape restaurants in particular have -- and will continue to have -- unique challenges. A big problem is labor. Getting workers is a struggle. There is a confluence of reasons: greater affluence on the Cape, a weakening of the work ethic amongst some, family and sports commitments, internships and earlier start times for colleges -- before Labor Day weekend.
Thirty years ago most of the Berigs’ staff were local people and college kids. But in 2020, the backbone of his workers were Jamaican. Years ago most staff were from Eastern Europe and Ireland. The owners have high praise for their formers employees, many of whom have become like part of an extended family. Undoubtedly, the H-2B program has been helpful over the years on hiring help. The program allows temporary work visas for foreign workers with job offers for seasonal, nonagricultural work in the U.S. (between 2,500 and 3,500 workers participate annually on the Cape in normal times). But the administrative requirements are enormously time-consuming, expensive and complex.
The Aug. 24 post announcing the final close brought a massive response.
Local, regional and national media picked up the story. Facebook users shared stories, expressed sadness, recalled fond memories. Upon hearing the news, some traveled hundreds of miles to have one more meal. Inquiring callers asked the best time to come. Regulars came and went as usual. Diners sought out the owners to express their appreciation. Former employees returned to give their best wishes. It was a proper sendoff.
Don and Marylou Berig are tired now. In the three weeks before the final order was placed, they remained goodwill ambassadors, greeting, listening and thanking the legions of well-wishers. Smiles diverted tears.
The Berigs look back and marvel at the sacrifice, struggle and success. There’s been no playbook. However, if anyone could come close to drafting an owner’s manual on serving several generations of diners for over half a century, they would be among those to do it.
Zero hour arrived. The incomparable Berig brand of hospitality reached its conclusion.
The hydrangeas had turned purple-rust. The winds had shifted southward. The crickets chirped defiantly. The doors closed. For good.
Life comes full circle. Just days before the restaurant closed, Rolling Stone magazine’s September issue featured the Beatles on its cover (remember, they broke up days after it opened in 1970). The sub-headline reads, “The Heartbreak, The Brotherhood, and Why the Music Matters 50 Years Later.” Family and friends will be substituting memories of the Lobster Claw for music.
James P. Freeman, a former financial-services executive, is a New England-based writer. He is a former columnist with The Cape Cod Times and New Boston Post. His work has also appeared in The Providence Journal, The Cape Codder, Cape Cod Life, newenglanddiary.com, golocalprov.com, nationalreview.com and insidesources.com.
Grace Kelly: Of seals, great white sharks and people
Great white shark
Via ecoRI News (ecori.org)
In the waning days of July, Julie Dimperio Holowach was swimming off the coast of Harspwell, Maine, with her daughter. What was a fun day in the surf and sun turned tragic when she was bitten by a great white shark and died as a result of her injuries.
The ensuing talk in the press and by New England beachgoers centered upon the rising seal population and its role in attracting sharks to local waters. Culling was discussed, and one headline read, “More Seals Means Learning To Live With Sharks In New England,’’ painting a picture that it’s the rotund sea mammal’s fault we’ve entered Jaws 2.0.
But the relationship among sharks, seals and humans is more nuanced and complex.
Of sharks, seals and humans, a John Steinbeck quote from Of Mice and Men seems appropriate: “Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
Gray seal
Of seals
The return of gray seals to New England waters, after they were hunted to dangerously low numbers, is often blamed when a shark attack happens.
In Inuit folklore, seals were created from the fingers of Sedna, the goddess of sea animals. In one version of the legend, Sedna angers her father by rejecting her suitors and marrying a dog. Enraged, he casts her over the side of his kayak and cuts off her fingers as she tries to clamber back into it. Her fingers became the first seals, and Sedna becomes ruler of all creatures of the deep.
Other groups have their own legends about pinnipeds that slide through the water like fish but can also maneuver their way on land.
And in New England, two breeds of pinnipeds — gray seals and harbor seals — have a deep relationship with the region’s land and sea.
“There were a lot of gray seals and harbor seals all through historic times up through early 1900s,” said Kimberly Murray, a research biologist and seal research coordinator at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “In fact, there was so many of them that there was a bounty for them in Maine and Massachusetts in the late 1800s, early 1900s. We don’t know exactly how many there were; I think … that it’s estimated something like 75,000 to 135,000 seals of both species were taken for the bounty, so there were a lot.”
While the presence of seals in this area has long roots, so does the history of humans hunting them, with seal meat even served at the first Thanksgiving.
“Seals and sea lions have historically been hunted,” said Monica DeAngelis, a marine-mammal biologist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, in Newport, R.I. “That was sort of the beginning of the relationship. Native Americans hunted them for subsistence and then European settlers, the early ones, used them for oil and meat, and for their pelt.”
Seal numbers declined steadily over the years, with people even picking them off for sport with guns in Narragansett Bay. The hunting and decimation of their numbers continued until the 1970s, when the Marine Mammal Protection Act was enacted, in 1972, and the Endangered Species Act was enacted, in 1973, both during the Nixon administration.
Harbor seal rests on the bank of the lower Connecticut River near Long Island Sound.
“They were really hunted down to low levels,” Murray said. “And there were a couple factors that allowed them to come back and recover. One of those was laws that were enacted in the state of Massachusetts in the ’60s and then the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. These protective laws pretty much banned hunting.”
Today, gray and harbor seal populations continue to reclaim the territory they fled along the coast of New England, where they haul out to breed, molt, and have their pups.
The population of gray seals, specifically, comes from a larger colony up near Nova Scotia, and have been steadily repopulating a territory that they had to leave to survive.
“There’s estimated to be a quarter-million of gray seals in Canada, and they move around a lot,” Murray said. “We know that the animals that have come down to the U.S. starting in the late ’80s, early ’90s, are coming from that source population. They are able to return to a territory they used to occupy, and that’s why I think people get really surprised because they didn’t know they were here before.”
But not everyone is happy about the return of the seals. Besides competing with fishermen for various fish stocks, the newly healthy seal population has sparked the idea that with more seals comes more of their scariest predators: sharks.
Of sharks
Humans have long held a fascination with the wonders — and horrors — of the sea, and sharks are no exception.
“There are some cultures that revere the shark and worship the shark and there are others that are frightened of it,” said Gregory Skomal, a senior scientist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
An illustration from the 16th-Century epic poem “History and True Novel of the Duke of Lyon de Bourges,” depicts a shark as a scaly, fanged monster with red eyes terrorizing the crusader Olivier de Bourges, who swings his axe at the beast as it devours his helmet.
Locally, more than a few historical records describe sharks as “monsters” and “man-eaters,” and a few vigilantes have even killed sharks as revenge for attacks. And the shark that lingers in man’s memory as the most fearsome of them all? The white shark, colloquially known as the great white.
“Here in New England and as far north as Newfoundland, white sharks are very well documented historically over the last several hundred years or so,” Skomal said.
But it was one summer, the summer of ’75, when the biggest and baddest of white sharks came to town. Its name was Jaws.
“Whenever you hear about a shark attack … you immediately think of Jaws,” said Marc Lapadula, a senior lecturer in film studies at Yale University. “People saw that film and they were terrified. People left their seats. I was there, I was 15 in 1975.”
Lapadula lectures on films that changed America, and noted that Jaws scared people so badly that during that summer many people avoided dipping so much as a toe in the briny blue.
.
“It was so scary to people that I had friends who had summer homes at Bethany Beach or Rehoboth Beach, Del., or Ocean City, Md., and that entire summer they would not go in the water,” he said.
Bradley Wetherbee, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Rhode Island, has spent nearly 30 years of his life studying sharks. To him, the perceptions of white sharks, and even the spotlight on this one breed of shark, is overkill.
“There are a lot of people out there who only know one species — great white sharks — and they know one thing about them, which is that they bite people, they kill people,” he said. “If one person sees a white shark up there in the Cape, it’s in the news. People are fascinated with them.”
But there’s much more to sharks than their unfounded reputation as cold-blooded, doll-eyed killers. Indeed, with more than 500 different species of shark known to man, the white shark is just one of many fascinating creatures.
Wetherbee is quick to defend the cartilaginous fish in all its varied forms. One of his focuses is on mako sharks, which don’t have nearly the cult following that white sharks possess.
“Everything about makos is fast,” he said. “Their tail, muscles, everything. They’d swim circles around white sharks.”
But it’s great whites that are almost always at the forefront of the human mind when a shark attack occurs. According to the Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack File, white sharks are part of the “Big Three” when it comes to attacks.
“The white, tiger and bull sharks are the ‘Big Three’ in the shark attack world because they are large species that are capable of inflicting serious injuries to a victim, are commonly found in areas where humans enter the water, and have teeth designed to shear rather than hold,” according to the project’s Web site.
“When a white shark attacks, it attacks to kill,” Skomal said. “Their strategy during a predation event is to ambush. A seal at the surface is a very formidable predator itself, and in order for a shark to kill a seal, it has to ambush it with speed, stealth and strength. Power. So, if the shark is making a mistake and it thinks that person is a seal, it’s still going to strike with force, and it does so in a way that creates an amazing amount of traumatic injury.”
But Skomal noted that immediately after attacking a human, the shark usually realizes its mistake.
“Very rarely if ever do they consume the person because they realize, almost immediately, that they made a mistake, that this is not their normal food,” he said.
Of humans
While calls to cull growing seal populations have sprung up as a way to mitigate the few shark attacks that occur each year, for many experts, the dilemma of the interaction among seals, sharks and humans isn’t so cut and dry.
“White sharks are known predators of seals; that’s what they augment their diet with as they get larger, when they get to be over nine feet in length. They’re built to kill seals and that’s what they do,” Skomal said. “So it makes perfect sense that as the seal population rebounds and they are recolonizing areas, white sharks are going to take notice and begin targeting those animals, and because those animals tend to be piled up close to shore, the chances of [humans] encountering a white shark are a bit higher.”
Sunset on Race Point in the Cape Cod National Seashore. That more and more people seek to spend time on the seashore means more encounters with seals and sharks.
— Photo by SeduisantRedux
But part of what is happening, and part of the animal equation that is often left undiscussed, is the human element.
Visiting the seashore wasn’t always a relaxing leisure activity. Up until the 1880s, the seaside was a wild place where shipwrecks occurred, storms destroyed buildings, pirates lied in wait to attack, and where monsters lurked in the dark waters. It wasn’t until the 1860s that the beach became a place popularly known for its curative qualities. Coupled with the Industrial Revolution and the birth of easy and increasingly affordable transportation in the form of automobiles, a jaunt to the seaside became accessible to more people.
That trend continues today.
In 2018, nearly 4 million people visited the Cape Cod National Seashore. Compared to the 30,000 to 50,000 seals estimated to be on the Cape in 2017 and the 147 white sharks identified in 2016, humans are the species present in the largest numbers.
And while we fear sharks and blame seals, we’ve had our own terrible impacts on both species throughout history, from hunting seals to the brink of extinction to the more recent overfishing of sharks.
“It appears that the white shark population, which was quite healthy, was overexploited during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” Skomal said. “During that time, there was a massive increase in shark landings driven by seafood markets and demand for shark fins. Then, in 1997, the U.S. government, followed by states, implemented regulations that protected white sharks: You could no longer target or land white sharks to keep. So … the population appears to be rebounding back to historical levels. But we don’t think it’s there just yet.”
While humans have attempted to correct the wrongs we’ve wrought throughout history when it comes to species decimation, the urge to control our environment still sits deep in the marrow of our bones. But like Captain Ahab hunting his white whale in Moby Dick, sometimes the desire for control ends with our own demise.
“When you have an ecosystem that’s well-balanced, that speaks wonders to the health of the ocean,” said DeAngelis, the marine-mammal biologist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. “And when you have a healthy ocean, you have healthy environment for the rest of us, for humans. I would be very concerned if all of a sudden all of the sharks disappeared, all of the seals disappeared, because that means something is going on with the ocean. It's a delicate balance, and humans have kind of tried to play God.”
Grace Kelly is a journalist with ecoRI News.
Leave wildlife alone
Piping Plover chick
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
An endangered Piping Plover chick was illegally removed from a Westerly, R.I., beach last week by vacationers who brought it home with them to Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
The chick was eventually brought to a Massachusetts wildlife rehabilitator when it began to show signs of poor health. Given its rapidly declining condition, it was transferred to Tufts Wildlife Clinic and then to Cape Wildlife in Barnstable. Despite the best efforts of veterinarians, the chick had become too weak from the ordeal and died.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service asks that people don’t disturb or interfere with plovers or other wildlife. While wild animals may appear to be “orphaned,” they usually aren’t; parents are often waiting nearby for humans to leave. Plover chicks are able to run and feed themselves, and even if they appear to be alone, their parents are usually in the vicinity.
“With such a small population, each individual bird makes a difference,” said Maureen Durkin, the agency’s plover coordinator for Rhode Island. “By sharing our beaches and leaving the birds undisturbed, we give plovers the best chance to successfully raise chicks each year.”
About 85 pairs of Piping Plovers breed in the Ocean State under the close watch of several agencies, including the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
The Piping Plover is a protected species, although its population on the East Coast is slowly making a comeback. The number of Piping Plover breeding pairs has increased from 1,879 in 2018 to 2,008 pairs last summer.
Baby songbirds, seal pups and fawns are also at risk from being removed from the wild unnecessarily by people mistaking them for orphans. If a young animal is encountered alone in the wild, the best course of action is typically to leave the area. In most cases the parents will return without human intervention, according to Fish & Wildlife Service officials.
In rare instances where a young animal is truly in need of assistance, people should contact the appropriate state or federal wildlife agency, whose staff is trained to handle these types of situations. Members of the public should never handle wildlife or remove it from the area before contacting authorities. In addition to the likelihood of causing more harm than good, regardless of intentions, it’s illegal to possess or handle most wildlife, especially threatened and endangered species such as Piping Plovers.
Unprofessional clamming
— Photo by Invertzoo
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
In one part of my brain it’s endless summer, as I was reminded by Dr. Ed Iannuccilli’s recent column in GoLocal about crabbing as a kid on the Rhode Island shore. (Hit this link to read the doctor’s sweet essay: https://www.golocalprov.com/articles/dr.-ed-iannuccilli-crabbin-on-a-summer-evening)
My paternal grandparents lived in a gray-shingle house on West Falmouth Harbor, on the Cape side of Buzzards Bay. (The house has since been torn down and replaced by a monstrosity twice as high.) The harbor once had vast numbers of quahogs and more than a few oysters, too. We kids would wade out on the flats, collect the shellfish in a bag and bring them back to a stone dock, where we’d smash them to get at the meat, over which we’d squeeze a lemon, and eat right there. Very messy and unprofessional. This was before our father showed us how to open them with a special knife, which I don’t think I could do now. I fuzzily remember that he could do it with one hand, and with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
On those seemingly open-ended days, a southwest wind was always blowing off Buzzards Bay, the air was always about 76 degrees, as was the water, and the haze turned into a purple fog in the late afternoon as the catboats and the bluefish and striped-bass seekers returned to the harbor from the usually choppy open bay.
A big oil spill in 1969 closed the harbor to legal shellfishing for decades. (Still, people, especially poor immigrants from Southeast Asia, would come clamming anyway and probably lied to the stores and restaurants about where their shellfish came from). But something good came from the disaster: West Falmouth Harbor became an internationally known place for research into the effects of oil spills and how to remediate them, in large part because the Marine Biological Laboratory was just down the road, in Woods Hole.
I’ll always remember the late ‘50s under a hazy sun as I dug into the sand to pull out a delectable quahog.
Drive-by whimsy on the Cape
Section of the “Garden Grove’’ installation by Alfred Glover, at the Cahoon Museum of American Art, in Cotuit, Mass. (on Cape Cod), through the end of the year.
The museum, which is still closed for in-person tours because of COVID-19,
explains that “Garden Grove,’’ part of the museum’s Streetside series, is a drive-by exhibition visible from the street along Route 28. It consists of “whimsical tree sculptures made of metal and wood, marked by giant ginkgo and philodendron leaves, beautiful flowers and strange yet endearing animals like nesting birds and spotted dogs.’’
The future summer resort
By 1890, the extension of frequent rail service to the Cape was turning the peninsula into a famous place to go in the summer. Many of the natives were ambivalent about this development.
“The time must come when this coast (Cape Cod) will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport, — I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now.”
― Henry David Thoreau, (1817-62) in Cape Cod
Plant-based art
”Art de la Mer’’ (Falmouth, on Cape Cod) (archival pigment print), by Bobby Baker. Copyright Bobby Baker Fine Art
Drawn to power
“Power: Chatham on Cape Cod” (archival pigment print), by Bobby Baker. Copyright Bobby Baker Fine Art Photography
Judith Graham: Some promises you can't keep
— Photo by Andreas Bohnenstengel
It was a promise Matt Perrin wasn’t able to keep.
“I’ll never take away your independence,” he’d told his mother, Rosemary, then 71, who lived alone on Cape Cod, in a much-loved cottage.
That was before Rosemary started calling Perrin and her brother, confused and disoriented, when she was out driving. Her Alzheimer’s disease was progressing.
Worried about the potential for a dangerous accident, Perrin took away his mother’s car keys, then got rid of her car. She was furious.
For family caregivers, this is a common, anxiety-provoking dilemma. They’ll promise Mom or Dad that they can stay at home through the end of their lives and never go to assisted living or a nursing home. Or they’ll commit to taking care of a spouse’s needs and not bringing paid help into the home. Or they’ll vow to pursue every possible medical intervention in a medical crisis.
Eventually, though, the unforeseen will arise ― after a devastating stroke or a heart attack, for instance, or a diagnosis of advanced cancer or dementia ― and these promises will be broken.
Mom or Dad will need more care than can be arranged at home. A husband or wife won’t be able to handle mounting responsibilities and will need to bring in help. A judgment call ― “this will only prolong suffering, there’s no point in doing more” ― will be made at the bedside of someone who is dying.
“We want to give loved ones who are sick or dying everything we think they want ― but we can’t,” said Barbara Karnes, 78, an end-of-life educator and hospice nurse based in Vancouver, Wash. “And then, we feel we’ve failed them and guilt can stay with us for the rest of our lives.”
She hasn’t forgotten an experience with her mother-in-law, Vi, who moved in with Karnes, her husband and two children after becoming a widow 30 years ago. At the time, Vi was in her 70s, weak and frail. Karnes was working full time and keeping the household going.
“My mother-in-law and I got into a disagreement, I don’t remember what it was about. But I remember her saying to me, ‘You promised you would take care of me,’ and making it clear that she felt I’d let her down. And I said, ‘I know, I was wrong ― I can’t do it all,’” she remembered. “I still feel bad about that.”
“No caregiver I know sets out to deceive another person: It’s just that none of us have a crystal ball or can predict what the future will hold,” she said. “And the best we can do isn’t always as much as we thought was possible.” “We have to figure out a way to forgive ourselves.”
Richard Narad, 64, a professor of health services administration at California State University, spent months after his wife’s death in December 2011 mentally reviewing the last hours of her life before achieving a measure of peace.
His wife, April, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 5 and was legally blind when the couple married in 1994. A year later, she had the first of a series of strokes. Eventually, April was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. In the last 18 months of her life, she was hospitalized 13 times.
April Narad had told her husband she wanted “full code” status in the event of an emergency ― in other words, “do everything possible to keep me alive.” But she was nervous about his willingness to honor her wishes because his own end-of-life views differed from hers.
“I think certain care is futile and you need to give up earlier,” he explained.
In the end, April was rushed to the hospital one night after dinner, gasping for breath. There, Narad directed medical staff to pursue “full code” interventions. But when a physician came out to tell him that death appeared inevitable, Narad remembers saying, “Well, if that’s the case, just call it.
Had he broken a promise to insist that other treatments be tried? Narad spent months wondering but eventually accepted that he acted in good faith and couldn’t have saved April’s life.
With illness, older couples can end up re-evaluating commitments they’ve made. Kathy Bell, 66, of Silver Spring, Md., promised her husband, Bruce Riggs, 82, that she’d stay with him “through all the changes in our lives” when they married in 1987. Then in August 2011, he received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
The couple moved into a senior living facility, but as Riggs’s condition worsened he had to go to a memory care facility in 2014. The following year, Bell had lunch with a man whose wife lived at the same facility. He told her his therapist had recommended he start dating.
“That planted the idea of possibly doing this myself at some point,” Bell said, and two years ago she met a man who has become a regular companion.
Does she feel she’s broken her promise to her husband, who was committed to a monogamous marriage? “No, I don’t,” Bell said, adding that “it’s not clear whether he knows me at this point. He doesn’t talk. The way I view it: I still love him. I still go to see him. I’m still taking care of him.”
Promises can be explicit ― spoken aloud ― or implicit, understood without direct communication. Both kinds can inspire regret.
Debra Hallisey, 62, a caregiver consultant based in Lawrenceville, N.J., describes making an unspoken promise to her father, Don, when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2014. Their agreement, which was never voiced: Neither would tell Hallisey’s mother, Doris ― who has diabetes, mobility issues and is legally blind ― how sick he was.
“I knew he was shielding [Mom] from knowing the truth. When she would ask questions, he wouldn’t say anything,” Hallisey said. Because her mother was disabled, Hallisey accompanied her father to doctor’s appointments.
When Hallisey’s father died, in February 2015, Doris was profoundly shocked and Hallisey was overcome by remorse. “It was then, I said to my mother, ‘Mommy, there are no more secrets. If something is wrong, I am going to tell you, and together we’re going to determine the best thing to do,’” she said.
In line with that promise, Hallisey has been direct with her mother, who uses a walker to get around her home in Somerset, N.J., and has round-the-clock home care. If and when Doris becomes unable to walk, she’ll have to move, Hallisey has said.
“I’ve told her, ‘Mommy, I’ll do everything to keep you in this house, but you have to use your walker and work at staying strong. A wheelchair won’t work in your house,’” Hallisey said. “I know that keeping her at home is a promise I may not be able to keep.”
Matt Perrin made the decision to move his mother, Rosemary, to assisted living in 2017, after realizing he couldn’t coordinate care for her escalating needs at a distance. (Rosemary lived on Cape Cod; Perrin lived in New Hampshire.) Because he’d vowed to protect her independence, “I felt so guilty ― a guilt that I had never felt before,” he admitted.
Rosemary resisted the move passionately, but after a few months settled into her new home.
“I felt relief then, and I still do,” Perrin said. “I wish I didn’t make that promise to my mom, and I wish she weren’t living with Alzheimer’s. But I’m thankful that she’s in a place that’s really good for her, all things considered.”
Judith Graham is a Kaiser Health News reporter.
RELATED TOPICS
AGING NAVIGATING AGING
James P. Freeman: Cape Cod winter storms -- curiosity and ferocity
“Winter is begun here, now, I suppose. It blew part of the hair off the dog yesterday & got the rest this morning.”
-- Mark Twain (1892)
The old logs tell it all.
“Blizzard ’05 worst on Cape in my life…” reads the entry on Jan. 23, 2005 in the Weather Wizard’s Weather Diary. So hand-wrote meteorologist Tim Kelley. Indeed, it was epic.
That personal proclamation reflects a larger generational curiosity about the wicked winter weather on Cape Cod. For centuries, the unpredictable oscillations of nature’s fury have provoked vigorous debate about the worst storm to ravage the very exposed peninsula.
Hurricanes come and go. Blizzards stall and meander. Winter’s ferocity is more spellbinding than summer’s clemency. And so the lore and allure of the Cape’s cold-weather excitement – especially nor’easters, sometimes with whiteouts -- is a rich narrative of meteorology, history and geology. And some mythology. Let the debates begin…
“A storm in the fall or winter is the time to visit it…”
--Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod (published in 1865)
A Cape native, Kelley radiates enthusiasm about the weather like loose electricity. His stacks of spiral, cardboard-bound, black-inked journals date back to March 3, 1992, when he first began broadcasting with then-start up New England Cable News (now sharing production facilities with NBC10 in Boston). With more than 10,000 daily reports, Kelley calls them “probably the most gratifying part of my career.” Reviewing them is an exercise in excavation: They are a captivating analog history, a sober juxtaposition against the blitzkrieg of digital noise emanating from today’s televisions, laptops and mobile phones. His entries about the Cape are particularly illuminating.
Take the Blizzard of Jan. 22-23, 2005, perhaps the most notorious blizzard in recorded Cape history. Kelley’s observations are stark and emphatic. He recalls that all of Nantucket was “without power,” “80 mph gusts” lashed the coast, and “31 inches” of snow buried Hyannis. (The Cape Cod Times reported 10-to-15-foot drifts and 27-foot swells.) Another entry reads “Benchmark.”
In New England meteorological lingo the benchmark is 40°N 70°W and helps identify the impacts that a winter storm might have on a region. When the center of an intense low-pressure area moves directly across those coordinates in the winter southeastern New England coastal communities can often expect a massive snow event, if it is cold enough. The Cape has been in the bull’s eye on many occasions.
“The very snow in the air had a character of its own…the snow of the outer Cape.…”
--Henry Beston, The Outermost House (1928)
Kelley brings an encyclopedic knowledge and perspective to storms big and small. Maybe surprisingly, then, he is not convinced that The Blizzard of 1978 warrants its place on a list of top winter tempests in Cape Cod history. In fact, he calls that one a “dud” – on Cape Cod. But one man’s dud is another man’s bomb.
Make that bombogenesis.
Don Wilding, a Cape Cod historian, writer and speaker, thinks otherwise. While other winter beasts certainly merit consideration, “nothing tops ’78,” he asserts. That storm (Feb. 6-7) did not qualify as a blizzard on the Cape, certainly not for the snow, which \changed to rain. Rather, this classic nor’easter was a severe wind (92 mph recorded in Chatham) and tidal event (14-½ foot tides measured in Provincetown). “It was a different experience on the Cape” than farther west, which got very deep snow, Wilding notes.
More of a winter hurricane (a definitive “eye” passed over the Outer Cape), the storm stalled out and hit at high tide on a new moon (astronomically high), when tides would have been “only” four feet above normal. More so, it ravaged the coast, most dramatically rearranging Coast Guard Beach in Eastham and Nauset Spit (later storms would inflict similar damage on Orleans and Chatham beaches).
Satellite view of the Blizzard of ‘78
“The storm had been terrific…”
-- Joseph C. Lincoln, Cape Cod Yesterdays (1935)
That blockbuster storm evoked an existential threat that presaged future peril. Its lasting legacy was less physical and more psychological. True, its coastal savagery surprised many forecasters at the time (grainy black and white images from space were still relatively new accessories, and there wasn’t much sophisticated computer guidance). But, more importantly, it shocked most sensibilities. When the storm swept Henry Beston’s long-revered “Outermost House’’ out to sea it affected Cape Codders’ psyche. The tiny structure was named “The Fo’castle,’’ was designated a literary landmark by the federal government in 1964, and was seen as a sturdy symbol of the new environmentalism of the 1970s. Tempests before that storm were recalled mostly for their maritime death and destruction. The shoreline was mere collateral damage.
Henceforth, the idea of coastal areas being routinely imperiled became front and center. Advances in climate-related technology and early-warning alerts probably fed that psychology. The ’78 monster became a psychological benchmark.
Still, before the days of Doppler radar and ensemble modeling, the most memorable Cape storms were chronicled by journalists, not in meteorologists. Old newspapers, magazines and books told the story, not the latest GOES satellite composites. And back then, words, not images or metrics, filled minds and bled hearts. That makes Kelley’s written work so compelling today.
Ironically, Thoreau, who wrote what may be the most memorable manuscript about Cape Cod, is not among the scribes who captured the exquisite cruelty of winter on the barred and bended arm; none of his four trips to the Cape in the mid-1800s occurred in winter.
“A winter-closed house gives the effect of mournfulness.”
--Gladys Taber, My Own Cape Cod (1971)
Henry Beston was more daring. His eyewitness accounts are riveting. During a year-long stay at the Outermost House, in Eastham, he wrote in January 1927, “So began the worst winter on the Cape for close upon fifty years, a winter marked by great storms and tides, six wrecks, and the loss of many lives.” He was enthralled by the fierce gale that hit on Feb. 19 and 20, describing a “convulsion of elemental fury.” Later, in March, he details the wreck of the three-masted schooner Montclair off Orleans. (Her bones still reappear after a good winter thrashing.)
Then there is the account of the terrible Portland Gale, in 1898. Much of Joseph C. Lincoln’s work was set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. But Lincoln remembered the Nov. 26 and 27 storm, so named for the sinking of the side-wheel steamer Portland, plying between Boston and the Maine city. Storm damage was catastrophic. There was tremendous damage to the Provincetown waterfront and its fishing fleet. Regionally, more than 400 people perished and 150 boats were destroyed. Nearly 200 people went down with The Portland off Cape Ann. The exact number isn’t known because the ship manifest was lost. Among the dead were a newly married couple of Lincoln’s acquaintance. Eerily, he memorializes, “… the young wife’s trunk, with all her bridal finery, was washed ashore at Orleans.” The bodies of the couple were never found.
The late-Noel Beyle, local author and agitator, relished winter weather. His black and white photo-essay booklets on all things Cape Cod are tinged with gallows humor. “The real test of wills,” he thought, “is whether the weather is hot or cold! That is the true contest on Cape Cod, regardless of the season, and it’s paramount most every winter.” April may be the cruelest month, he joked. Consider the April 6-7 blizzard that blanketed the Cape in 1982. Its “north-to-northwest gale” and full-moon tide caused “severe erosion along parts of the Bay shoreline.”
“It does get a bit rough at times… to tough out all these fun winter storms!”
--Noel Beyle, Cape Cod Weather Oddities (1982)
Of course, other storms deserve honorable mention. Some bloggers on americanwx.com rank the Jan. 26-27, 2015 blizzard (named Juno by The Weather Channel) right up there with the 2005 blizzard. (Sandwich recorded 34.4 inches of snow). The Feb. 8-9, 2013 “extreme nor’easter” Nemo bore resemblance to its 1978 ancestor (it was a benchmark storm too). Three notable storms from the last century weren’t the beneficiaries of the 24/7 news cycle or social-media promotion: the Feb. 17-18, 1952 nor’easter (S.S. Pendleton disaster); the March 2-5, 1960 blizzard (record Nantucket snowfall of 31.3 inches); the Feb. 9-10, 1987 storm (a rare Cape-only blizzard; at the time, said to be the worst blizzard in 30 years). Surely, over time, their standings will be diminished.
Much was made of the three roaring nor’easters that struck the Cape in March 2018 over the span of just 11 days. All three storms were essentially benchmark events. And the coastal erosion that the trio caused was depressingly brutal at such places as Nauset Beach in Orleans. Their formation and subsequent track was, weather.com reported, unusual but not unprecedented. The three potent systems that formed in early 2015 were of similar occurrence; they also passed near the benchmark. Storms, like history, can repeat themselves.
Before he became known as “Dr. Beach,” Stephen P. Leatherman wrote Cape Cod Field Trips, published in 1988. A geologist by training, his expedition underscores that the Cape is a relative geologic infant, a product of the last Ice Age, which ended about 12,000 years ago. He traces its origin and evolution from “yesterday’s glaciers” to “today’s beaches.” It is exclusive real estate.
The Cape’s location makes it a desirable target for storms. It’s on the edge of a continent and on the edge of an ocean. It also sits about half-way between the equator and the North Pole, and thus in a region where tropical and arctic air clash. Throw in a fluctuating jet stream and the Labrador Current and Gulf Stream, too. As a consequence, weather comes from all directions. Tim Kelley boasts that “Cape Cod has the most interesting weather on earth.” Especially the winter variety.
“This storm, it is true, had extraordinary credentials.”
--Robert Finch, The Outer Beach (2017)
In many ways Kelley himself bridges past and present -- yesterday’s journalist and today’s meteorologist. His state-of-the-art tools allow him unparalleled access to high-tech prediction but his old-school weather logs allow him deep access to recollection -- a key intangible that gives his on-air presentation the depth of soul. Something we need now. Even when the power goes out.
In a data-driven world, we also demand nontechnical, accessible explanations of events that just might be beyond our ability to explain and act on. Meanwhile, there’s the age-old drama/conflict: man vs. environment. In any case, Kelley reminds us, “Weather is a balance of extremes; ‘normal’ is abnormal.”
How will Boreas, Greek god of winter, and other divines manage the ferocity of storms not yet dreamed up? For those seeking comfort, take solace in Mark Twain’s universal exasperation. Trapped for days indoors during the Blizzard of 1888 and his wife unable to travel, he wrote Olivia the following:
“… a blizzard’s the idea; pour down all the snow in stock, turn loose all the winds, bring a whole continent to a stand-still: that is Providence’s idea of the correct way to trump a person’s trick.”
xxx
James P. Freeman is a New England-based writer, financial adviser and former banker. He is a former columnist with The Cape Cod Times and New Boston Post. His work has also appeared here as well as in The Providence Journal, The Cape Codder, golocalprov.com, nationalreview.com, and insidesources.com. A version of this essay has appeared in Cape Cod Life.
'Among the dark pines'
Dunes atS andy Neck, in Sandwich, on Cape Cod Bay
“The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog,
The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,
Sorrow with life began!
“And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore,
O the wind, and the wind, for evermore!
What will become of man?’’
— From “Cape Cod, ‘‘ by George Santayana (1863-1952)
'Why is the world so old?'
On a beach in the Cape Cod National Seashore.
“The low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine,
The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,—
O, I am sick for home!
The salt, salt smell of the thick sea air,
And the smooth round stones that the ebbtides wear,—
When will the good ship come?
The wretched stumps all charred and burned,
And the deep soft rut where the cartwheel turned,—
Why is the world so old?
The lapping wave, and the broad gray sky
Where the cawing crows and the slow gulls fly,
Where are the dead untold?
The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog,
The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,
Sorrow with life began!
And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore,
O the wind, and the wind, for evermore!
What will become of man?’’
— “Cape Cod,’’ by George Santayana
Photo taken around the turn of the 20th Century.
James P. Freeman:Tuesdays are big opioid-overdose days on the Cape
The news this past Aug. 22, a Tuesday, seemed promising. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health released its quarterly report showing a 5 percent decline in opioid-related deaths in the first half of 2017 compared with the like period last year (978 deaths, as opposed to 1,031 deaths; January to June). The statistics led The Boston Globe to conclude this was “the strongest indication to date that the state’s overdose crisis might have started to abate.”
But the news was a tantalizing chimera. The Barnstable police already knew. August was cruel.
With overwhelming preponderance and without overlooking prejudice, the opioid crisis still rages unabated in Massachusetts. Especially on Cape Cod.
Figures provided by the Barnstable Police Department, the largest police force on the Cape, reveal a massive spike in opioid overdoses this past August compared with August 2016 (41 overdoses this year as opposed to 8 overdoses last year). Through the end of September, opioid-related overdoses in Barnstable, which at about 45,000 people is the largest town on the Cape, stood at 148. During the like period last year that number was 82.
Overdoses for the combined two months of August and September (61) were the highest for back-to-back months since January and February 2015 (51), when the Barnstable police first began keeping opioid-specific records. That’s when things seemed really bad. In many ways, now they’re worse.
Except for May, every month this year in Barnstable has seen an increase in overdoses compared to corresponding months in 2016. Already, there have been more overdoses in just nine months of 2017 than during all of 2016. And if current trends continue — nothing suggests that they won’t — this year will see more overdoses than in 2015, the year many thought was the high-water mark.
The death rate on the Cape isn’t encouraging, either. It is rising, not declining. Barnstable police report that 19 people have died due to overdoses through Oct. 10 of this year. In the like period, just nine people died through the end of October 2016. It is nearly certain that, beginning with respective Januarys, more lives will be lost by the end of October 2017 than were lost by October 2015 and October 2016, combined. This is progress in reverse.
Officer Eric W. Drifmeyer oversees the Research and Analysis Unit of the Barnstable Police Department. He is a busy man. Before 2015, the department, like many Massachusetts law-enforcement agencies, did not have adequate reporting mechanisms to track and maintain useful information relating to opioid-specific activity. In the past, Drifmeyer says, any data collected were categorized as generic “medical events.” But as the opioid crisis escalated — it is estimated that 85 percent of crimes on Cape Cod are opiate-related — the need for more accurate crime data increased, too.
So Drifmeyer and his colleagues built their own database.
Data-driven information provides police with intelligence. With superior intelligence trends become apparent — such as populations at risk in an opioid crisis. Here, that means young adults who are prone to abusing opioids. In Barnstable — an area of 76 square miles comprising seven villages of affluence and affliction — overdoses in 2017 disproportionately affect white males ages 20-29 and 30-39, far more than any other demographic group. Barnstable police statistics show that men are overdosing at nearly twice the rate of women. And for females, white women ages 20-29 and 30-39 show the highest levels of overdose in 2017. These have been trend lines for years.
A superior database of historical information doesn’t just reveal trends. Consistent trends become accurate predictors of criminal activity. Drifmeyer notes that a spike in overdoses correlates directly with an immediate surge in crimes, such as shoplifting and car and house break-ins. Accordingly, proceeds from illicit sales of ill-gotten goods finance the next purchase of heroin and other opioids on the street. And the cycle repeats itself. From this learning curve emerges better policing — devising effective strategies, dispatching efficacious resources, and thwarting criminal behavior.
Every day on Cape Cod, in a sad ritual, somewhere, someone is rolling up a sleeve, readying an arm for a taut elastic rubber tourniquet, anticipating the needle chill about to puncture a warm vein for perhaps the last sensationally euphoric high.
Tap. Tap. Tap …
Naloxone, the powerful opioid antidote, popularly known as Narcan, reverses the effects of overdose. Its widespread and immediate administration by first responders on those suspected of overdosing is probably the reason that the death rate has declined slightly this year in Massachusetts. Police in Barnstable have revived many people. Of the 148 officially designated overdoses this year, police have administered Narcan 46 times individually and another 25 times with assistance from a third party, such as a firefighter-emergency medical technician. In the short term Narcan saves lives. But Narcan solves nothing.
Stunningly, many addicts today have Narcan present while they are using, says Drifmeyer. Employing what one detective said was a “buddy system,” Narcan is administered by the corresponding partner in the event of overdose by the user. It is a bizarre insurance policy against a bad batch of drugs in this high-stakes risk/reward game; much heroin is now laced with the powerful additive fentanyl (itself a synthetic opiate), 50-100 times more powerful than morphine and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin itself.
Today, Barnstable police cruisers are stocked with two 4-milligram doses of Narcan. Not long ago it was 2-milligram doses. Those lower doses were not effective at neutralizing higher concentrations of fentanyl increasingly found in heroin.
First responders are also at risk from exposure to just small quantities of fentanyl. It is so dangerous, in fact, that police and paramedics can effectively “accidently overdose” if they come into contact with only a bit of the drug. Today, Barnstable police dog units now carry Narcan because service dogs sometimes accidentally overdose, too, by inhaling fentanyl into their nasal passages or absorbing in into their paws while working a case. This unimaginable collateral damage is the newest alarming phenomenon in what PresidentTrump in August rightly called a “national emergency.”
Last decade, the most covered story in The Cape Cod Times, the largest paper on the Cape, was the controversial off-shore wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound known as “Cape Wind.” By the end of this decade, depressingly, the opioid matter will likely be the top story. Since 2000, nearly 400 people have died on the Cape and Islands due to some form of opioid overdose. With crashing regularity, stories appear on a near-daily basis, one falling into the other, like cascading dominoes.
Click. Click. Click …
In the last month, these stories received front-page treatment: Oct. 7, “Construction Workers Hard Hit by Opioid Addiction”; Oct. 4, “Study at McLean Hospital Reveals Marijuana’s Benefits in Lowering Opioid Usage”; Sept. 22, “Judge: Drug Dealing Merits Homicide-Level Bail”; Sept. 17, “Addiction Experts Warn of Detox Dangers”; and Sept. 12, “Drop-In Night New Option for Drug Users.”
Obituaries in the paper are sad narratives of dying youth. They are all too frequent. Last year, 82 people on the Cape and Islands died because of opioid overdose. (Barnstable County ranked third statewide for fatal overdose rates in 2015 and 2016.) And all too often these announcements contain no cause of death, wrongly stating the deceased died “peacefully” or “quietly.” One was named Arianna Sheedy. She was 23 and a mother of two when she fatally overdosed on Feb. 16, 2015, one of seven who died of similar causes on Cape Cod that month.
Sheedy was featured in the 2015 HBO film Heroin: Cape Cod, USA. The documentary portrays the day-to-day lives of eight young addicts. It is equally haunting and horrifying and must-viewing for anyone — everyone! — intent on understanding the mindset of people completely consumed emotionally, psychologically, and physically by this kind of addiction. (The film will be rebroadcast on HBO2 on Wednesday, Oct. 18.)
There are many memorable vignettes but one stands out. Opioid nirvana, one participant said, “felt like Christmas morning every time I shot up. Who wants to give that up?” Sheedy and another addict, Marissa, died before filming was finished. The film is dedicated to their memory.
Among the intriguing statistics in the Barnstable police database are 2017 overdoses by day-of-the-week. Surprisingly, Tuesdays rank second-highest, only slightly below Fridays. As Drifmeyer dryly concedes, heroin “is not a recreational drug,” so weekdays are just as active as weekends. (Heroin is a retail business; perhaps even big deliveries slow on Sundays.) Still, why Tuesdays figure so prominently is puzzling to police. But as time and statistics accumulate, it is likely that mystery will be solved by their unsung and noble work.
Most of the heroin on Cape Cod arrives from Fall River and New Bedford, transported along the I-195 corridor, what is considered a local Heroin Highway. Every day, anonymous lives, hopes and dreams travel that lonesome road. Until something desperately changes, they are slowly passing …
Gone. Gone. Gone.
James P. Freeman is a New England-based writer and former columnist with The Cape Cod Times. This piece first ran in the New Boston Post. Besides that outlet and newenglanddiary.com, his work has also appeared in The Providence Journal and nationalreview.com.
Sharks off the beach!
White shark cruising the surface.
Photo by Brocken Inaglory
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's Digital Diary, in GoLocal 24.com
Every time there’s a very rare (and always much publicized) attack by a white shark on swimmers or surfers (or surfboards) off Cape Cod, there’s a new proposal to kill as many of these creatures as possible off the Cape’s beaches. Consider the proposal that surfaced last week to use drum line traps to kill the sharks. That’s a terrible idea. Sharks are part of the eco-system and wiping them out in certain waters will hurt other species, too. Everything in the sea is connected.
The best advice to swimmers and surfers in waters known to be occasionally visited by sharks is not to go out beyond the surf line. White sharks, the scariest ones, like deep water and usually attack prey from below. It’s good to remember how rare shark attacks on people are in New England, with no more than half a dozen in Massachusetts since 2000. (There’s some confusion about the exact number of documented attacks.) The last fatal attack in the state was off Mattapoisett, on Buzzards Bay, in 1936.
The seal population has swollen along the southeastern New England coast in recent years, attracting sharks. If you see seals, you might want to keep closer to the shore. At the same time, people are using the beaches more than ever. But that’s no excuse for humans to destroy yet another piece of the marine eco-system.
Meanwhile, with global warming, we may see more white sharks on the New England coast.
My Cape Cod -- from rural to suburban
The Bourne Bridge, over the Cape Cod Canal, with the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge in the distance.
From Robert Whitcombs's "Digital Diary','' in GoLocal24com
We went down to the Cape the other day to stay with a cousin in a house on a harbor on Buzzards Bay. I thought of how much the Cape had changed since my boyhood, in the ‘50s. Then, much of it was truly rural, with small farms and many cranberry bogs. There were no superhighways. Approaching from Boston’s southeastern suburbs, you’d go down Route 3A, which would become increasingly rustic as you headed south, with farm stands and general stores. The closer we got to the Cape Cod Canal, the more the air smelled like pine, as we entered a state forest.
Then the excitement of crossing the Sagamore Bridge onto an island/peninsula then devoid of big box stores, malls and gated retirement communities and on to my paternal grandparents’ gray-shingled house in the village of West Falmouth, the land of which some of my Quaker ancestors had bought from the Indians in the 1600’s. Then, if there were still time, to the beach, where the water was much cleaner and warmer than in Massachusetts Bay, and where the private bathhouse would get destroyed from time to time in hurricanes, to whichBuzzards Bay is particularly vulnerable.
After that, getting some ice cream from the village’s one and only general store. Then maybe a trip to Woods Hole the next day to see the aquarium of the world-famous Oceanographic Institution there. Woods Hole was where some of my ancestors built boats and partnered in the Pacific Guano Co., where bird excrement from Pacific Islands was processed with fish meal to make what was considered in the 19th Century the best fertilizer. Nowadays, it’s hard to think of Woods Hole as a factory town. Rather, it’s now in effect a college town.
As for West Falmouth, while it’s still almost as pretty as it was 60 years, it’s a ghost town to me since virtually everyone I knew there has died or otherwise gone elsewhere.
Or we occasionally approached the Cape from the west, on Route 6, with its strips of clam shacks, cheap motels and kitschy tourist-oriented gift stores. Ugly, but delightful to young children. Now, of course, you miss the local and often tacky texture on the boring big divided highways. And these highways draw in so much out-of-region traffic that the traffic jams on the two road bridges (there’s also the beautiful railroad bridge) mean driving to the Cape can take considerably longer now than in the ‘50s.
Because of that and because too much of this glacial moraine now looks like exurbia or suburbia, we don’t makemany visits anymore to Olde Cape Cod. Still, the air down there still has a certain luminosity.
Lauren Owens Lambert: Trying to rescue sea turtles on Cape Cod beaches.
A Kemp's Ridley sea turtle.
Via ecoRI News (ecori.org
Winters are harsh on the shores of Cape Cod. They’re not a place where you would expect to find tropical sea turtles. But each winter, greens, loggerheads and Kemp’s Ridleys wash up, stunned by the cold ocean temperatures and disoriented by the unfamiliar geography.
Tony LaCasse, of the New England Aquarium, calls the hook-like shape of the geography “The Deadly Bucket.”
With help from volunteers and biologists at Mass Audubon and the New England Aquarium, the turtles are rescued, rehabilitated and flown to warmer waters to be released. Turtle strandings averaged about 90 annually until 2014, when there was a record 700.
The most commonly found stranded species is also the most endangered, the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle.
“We are not sure why we are seeing an increase in strandings while also noticing an overall decline in population of ridleys,” said Connie Merigo, director of the New England Aquarium’s Marine Animal Rescue Program, one of the oldest programs of its kind in the country.
Sea turtles are some of the world’s great navigators, but for this part of their journey a little help is needed.
Massachusetts resident Lauren Owens Lambert runs a photo journalist Web site.
An island for opioid treament
Penikese Island from the southeast.
Excerpted from Robert Whitcomb's Dec. 1 Digital Diary column in GoLocal24.
Tiny Penikese Island, off southwestern Cape Cod and part of the Elizabeth Islands, has been turned into a beautiful if austere retreat for the treatment of opioid addiction, a staggering problem all over America. You can blame the addiction epidemic, in part, on pharmaceutical companies and their salespeople asserting that such newish opiates as OxyContin were not dangerously addictive and were needed to address an alleged American “pain crisis."
In the past, Penikese has hosted a leper colony, a school for troubled boys and a bird sanctuary. Its latest use is admirable, though, it should be emphasized, the facility can only take a few clients at a time – at this point only young men.
There must be some other New England islands that would serve as places where addicts can confront and overcome their demons with the help of tough but compassionate therapists and without the temptation, followed all too often by quick relapse, they’d have on a mainland. It’s hard to avoid the mindfulness and perspective you gain in such a quiet, if windy place. Not that you’d want to spend the rest of your life there.
James P. Freeman: The indomitable spirit of my Cape Cod aunt
On the Cape Cod National Seashore.
My aunt, Irene Doane, lived a life that was uniquely Cape Cod -- where she lived her entire life -- but also recalled, in many ways, the broader America of the 20th Century… full of ups and downs, hopes and heartbreaks, and vast change during her nearly 90 years on the Cape.
She was born in1927, in the Roaring Twenties, which Scott Fitzgerald dubbed “The Jazz Age,’’ two years before October 1929 crash that led to the Great Depression. And like many Americans of that generation, her character was cemented by the Second World War. These events guided and informed her patriotism, independence, indomitable spirit, and, as would be evident later in life, her survival instincts. With gusto.
These traits were validated when she met my uncle, George, who himself embraced many of these values. Just as he had landed on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day, he landed in her heart. For 50 years as a married couple. It is hard to believe that he died almost 20 years ago. Yet she fought on with her own brand of style and swagger.
When I moved to New England permanently, in late 2002, I got to know her much better. When I was living in Orleans that first winter; we had dinner together nearly every two weeks. I still marvel at her love of nature (it was merely coincidence that she lived on Chick-a-dee Lane and that the state bird in Massachusetts is the Black-capped Chickadee) and her dedication to the many social organizations -- her extended family – the guilds, lodges and women’s groups, not to mention aspiring public officials.
These were the days of real, actual human interaction, before the days that my generation would think of social interaction as the digital space of Twitter and Facebook. Coffee at her home base, “The Homeport,” in Orleans, will never be the same. Sunday suppers will lose some of their charm.
I will miss her at family gatherings like Christmas and the Fourth of July, where she was always checking on the family. And the stories. The Freeman gift of gab. One in particular is priceless and was recalled by a 1955 Cape Codder column entitled “Scuttlebutt.”
“George and Irene Doane of Orleans recently turned in their Ford for a new model. Last week Irene drove the new car to the center to do her marketing. She came out of the store loaded down with the makings for a good chicken dinner. And over in the parking lot sat the old Doane car, having been purchased by someone else. Well, you guessed it! Irene marched right up to the familiar vehicle, opened the back door and deposited her groceries on the seat. Then she went back to do some more shopping. Later, half way home in the new car, she noticed that there were no groceries on the back seat. Realizing what she had done, Irene hurried back to the center. But the other car had pulled out. Needless to say, George didn’t have chicken that night.”
We do not know God’s plan but in a way, God’s plan was entirely fitting this time, in that she passed away as fall began. With the approaching explosion of colors, a reminder of one of the thousands of rich, elegant bouquets she made down the road at Thayer’s Florist Shop, her passion and vocation.
The following passage from Gladys Taber’s My Own Cape Cod, captures beautifully her fondness for nature, literature and storytelling. Even in her last days she was sharing stories.
“Summer slides so gently into autumn on Cape Cod that it is easy to believe there will be no end. Day dreams toward twilight, skies are sapphire, the tide ebbs quietly. I begin to think time itself is arrested and the green leaves will stay forever on the trees. Gardens glow with color, with the roses and with carpets of zinnias and asters….
Times have changed but the Harvest Moon of September exerts the same magic, shines so bright. The fishing boats that are at anchor in the channel nudge the piling softly, perhaps dreaming of tomorrow.”
Our tomorrows will be a little sadder now that she has departed us. But we are comforted in knowing that she will see George soon and that means there will certainly be a good story somewhere too, a story, no doubt, rich with New England humor, imagery and traditions. We can all dream about that…
James P. Freeman, a former banker, is a New England-based essayist.
Cape Cod fishermen are challenged by huge mid-water herring trawlers
By Nicole St. Clair Knobloch
for ecoRI News (ecori.org)
CHATHAM, Mass.
Cape Cod fishermen may be on their way to some relief from sharing inshore fishing grounds with mid-water herring trawling, a practice they say is threatening their livelihoods. But a persistent lack of data on the impact of the trawls may hamper efforts to regulate them.
On Aug. 17, the Herring Oversight Committee of the New England Fisheries Management Council voted to send the council two options for establishing a buffer zone prohibiting mid-water trawling off Cape Cod. The zone would extend either 12 miles or 35 miles from shore — significantly farther than the 6-mile zone proposed by the herring industry and closer than the 50-mile mark sought by environmental groups. The council will consider the options when it meets in September.
Fishermen have been complaining for years about the industrial-sized ships landing on the back side of Cape Cod, scooping up millions of pounds of herring and leaving, they say, a temporary ocean “bio-desert” in their wake.
In 2015, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance collected hundreds of comments and individual letters from fisherman about the phenomenon called “localized depletion” — defined as “when harvesting takes more fish than can be replaced locally or through fish migrating into the catch area within a given time period.”
For those who fish bluefin tuna, striped bass, dogfish and are still recovering from drastic cuts to allowable catches of groundfish such as cod, competing with the large ships doesn’t feel like a fair fight.
“We have a problem on the back side of the Cape,” said striped bass fisherman Patrick Paquette at the recent committee hearing. “We have big industrial boats fishing in shallow water.”
The comments were part of a new look at how herring fishing should be managed. The New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) was tasked in 2007 with establishing a control rule for herring stocks. But in 2014, a lawsuit from environmental groups prompted an examination of the biological and ecological role of herring in the western Atlantic Ocean ecosystem, with the aim of establishing a stronger control rule reflecting the herring’s status as a forage species.
Even if the NEFMC is able to determine that role, and assign a new acceptable biological catch limit for herring, its science committee asserts that stronger stock-wide limits wouldn’t necessarily avoid local effects on the food web when trawlers come through.
A local dogfish fisherman, who didn’t want to use his name for fear of “retribution” from the herring companies, described the experience of encountering a mid-water trawler inshore.
“We go out and they’re out there with their lights off, inside of three miles (from shore),” he said at the Chatham dock two days before the Aug. 17 meeting. “They see us and turn their lights on, and plow right through our lines, leaving no groundfish. We might as well just go home and call it a season.”
The herring industry disputes such claims, as proving them has been problematic. At the August meeting, the task force charged with analyzing the impacts of midwater trawling on other species presented few results. Though it confirmed significant numbers of trawler landings in Area 114, a section of ocean on the “back” of Cape Cod, it didn’t show the effect of that activity on other species. NEFMC staff cited lack of reported data and noted the lack of an adequate computer model and the time to develop one.
The staff did find that both large and small schools of tuna, which prey on herring, are lower in New England now than in the 1980s, but suggested lack of prey as only one of several possible explanations for the decline.
“Year after year, we have no scientific basis for taking any action on herring. We have no evidence localized depletion exists,” said Herring Oversight Committee member Mary Beth Tooley, who is on the board of O’Hara Industries, a herring company operating two mid-water trawlers out of Rockport, Maine.
Herring fisherman Gerry O’Neill got up from the audience to agree with Tooley.
“I feel this whole thing is going forward based on perception, not based on facts,” he said. “The research — there are ways to do it. We’d like to see it done. If we are going to lose access to fish we would like some biological, scientific basis for it.”
Getting that level of proof in New England is difficult, according to John Pappalardo, CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.
“We don’t have synced or simple data collection systems on each fishery,” he said. He pointed to Alaska, where herring fishing is intensely monitored and pair trawling is limited to a few areas. There, he said, “Industry is more involved in the collection of that data. It’s partly the (New England) culture, which is a resistance to being observed or monitored.”
Making that happen here, Pappalardo said, is up to Congress and the National Marine Fisheries Service. “Where is the political will?” he asked.
He expressed exasperation with the idea that a connection between herring trawls and other species had to be proved absolutely.
“These people will not draw a correlation,” he said. “(For them) there is always something else to eat in the ocean.”
Even without more data, NEFMC’s Atlantic herring management plan was amended in 2006 to ban midwater trawling in the summer in the inshore area for the entire Gulf of Maine. The ban ends just above the fishing area of Cape Cod. It came after thousands of comments from Gulf of Maine fishermen with similar complaints as their Cape Cod counterparts.
At the September meeting, the council is expected to hear the science committee’s findings on how much herring is needed to support the area’s ecosystem.
To some, herring’s role is obvious, even if acceptable catch levels are not.
“The ecosystem starts with herring,” said the Chatham dogfish fisherman. “Am I the only one that remembers that part in elementary school? When they drew a circle around a herring and said the food chain starts here.”