If you’re Willy Goldsmith, sometimes being a scientist means going fishing on Cape Cod.
Goldsmith’s focus is Atlantic bluefin tuna—a species that supports a valuable recreational fishery from Maine to North Carolina, but is currently considered overfished.
To address the issue of rebuilding the bluefin tuna population while maintaining the fishery’s economic and recreational opportunities, Goldsmith, a National Marine Fisheries Service-Sea Grant Marine Resource Economics fellow and PhD student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, is surveying bluefin tuna anglers to examine their motivations and values. He’s also casting some of his own lines.
In August, Goldsmith went fishing in the waters off Cape Cod with Captain Mike Hogan from Salty Cape, and Captain Shaun Ruge of Riptide Charters to find out if Atlantic bluefin tuna survive after being caught and released by recreational anglers. Every tuna the trio caught was outfitted with a satellite tag that allows Goldsmith to follow its movements and behavior for 30 days, which shows him if it survived.
To learn more about Goldsmith’s work and see what Captain Hogan calls Goldsmith’s “textbook” bluefin-tuna-fishing technique, watch the video above, produced by Salty Cape. You can also listen to Goldsmith talk about his research on Nautical Talk Radio.
