Regional media cover James Sulikowski's research on skate bycatch mortality in the scallop industry

A number of media outlets - including the Boston Globe, Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel, Cape Cod Times, Gainesville Sun, WMTW, and WCSH - ran an Associated Press story on research by UNE marine biologist James Sulikowski, Ph.D., who is the co-investigator for a $1,092,642 NOAA grant to evaluate the mortality rates of skates inadvertently caught by scallop boats fishing on the Georges Bank fishing grounds east of Cape Cod.

Previous research from 2009-2011 on skate bycatch in the otter trawl fishery by Sulikowski and a colleague contributed to a November 2011 emergency action by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to revise an existing policy and increase the amount of skate that fishermen could land that year. Read more.