By Stephanie Grinnell

Staff Writer

There is a predatory species lurking offshore and its population is increasing faster than anyone had predicted. 

“The spiny dogfish is a unique species to this area,” said James Sulikowski of the University of New England. 

Sulikowski is studying the dogfish and recently hosted a forum at the university to raise awareness of the voracious fish’s presence in Maine and its impact on commercial and recreational fishing. 

In the 1980s, dogfish were looked upon as a candidate for commercial fishing, but they were overfished and in 2000 placed under the Magneson Stevenson Act to prevent the collapse of the species, Sulikowski said. 

“The population crashed,” he said. 

Because dogfish’s reproductive cycle is long, they did not recover quickly. Under commercial fishing guidelines enforced by the National Marine Fisheries Service, there is a limited quota of dogfish that may be harvested each year and once the quota is met, harvesting must cease, Sulikowski said.

“One of the issues is dogfish are rebounding quicker than what we thought,” he said. 

Sulikowski said studies of dogfish predicted the population would rebuild to stock levels 12 years from now but  the level is close to stock levels now, including the number of adult females.  Sulikowski said the rebounding population is increasingly challenging for fishermen.  

“If you go out into the gulf of Maine with a commercial or recreational fisherman, you would have a hard time finding anything but spiny dogfish,” he said. 

One commercial fisherman told Sulikowski he caught 60,000 pounds of codfish and 220,000 pounds of dogfish. 

“There’s a whole ecosystem aspect to this,” he said. “Dogfish are highly predatorial. They are very voracious and will eat anything in front of them.”

Studies have shown dogfish can displace codfish and haddock, either by eating the fish or their food source, Sulikowski said. His research has shown 80 to 90 percent of a dogfish’s diet is made up of commercially important species. 

“An increasing number of dogfish could throw the ecosystem out of balance,” he said.

Recreational fishing charter captain Mike Jancovic said he has noticed the increasing numbers of dogfish. 

“There are some areas where you can’t fish without catching dogfish,” he said. “I feel they have become the predominant fish.”

When Jancovic takes people fishing for tuna, he said he can’t lure the tuna with chum because of the dogfish. He said it is frustrating for recreational fisherman, but said it hasn’t begun to hurt his business. 

“They can catch a cod and by the time they get it up to the boat, dogfish have taken chunks out of them. We usually throw them (dogfish) back because we are targeting other species,” Jancovic said. 

In Europe, the dogfish are used to make fish and chips, but usually recreational fishermen are seeking other types of fish and do not keep the dogfish.

The dogfish consume six times their body weight in one year, Sulikowski said. Based on a National Marine Fisheries Service biomass survey, dogfish consume more than 2.4 million metric tons of prey per year.  

“It’s definitely a problem for any commercial or recreational fisherman out there,” he said.

Saco Bay Tackle Manager Craig Bergeron said dogfish are becoming a nuisance. 

“We’re out there all the time, there’s definitely an increase,” he said. 

Bergeron said dogfish have been found locally washed up on beaches, caught by recreational fishermen on piers and in lobster traps.

“Everything that swims out there they’ll eat, they’ll even eat themselves,” Bergeron said. 

He said fishermen who begin catching dogfish can do nothing but move to another area to try and catch other fish because dogfish school together. 

Sulikowski said he has been granted funding for three satellite tags, at $5,000 each. He has already tagged three dogfish and plans to use the information gathered to paint a better picture of dogfish habits. Already, he has found dogfish travel farther and deeper than previously thought. 

“There are a lot of issues hindering our knowledge of this species,” Sulikowski said. “The information you get back is tremendous. They are very active, which is different than we thought.” 

Sulikowski said the dogfish in the gulf of Maine are spiny dogfish but there is another species, smooth dogfish, that live off Cape Cod but do not travel this far north. 

“In our area, there’s no other dogfish,” he said. 

Contact Stephanie Grinnell by calling 282-4337 ext. 213 or email news@inthecourier.com.