THE BACK PAGE 



"The Back Page" is an update 

 on Sea Grant activities — on 

 research, marine education and 

 advisory services. It's also a good 

 place to find out about meetings 

 and workshops, and new publica- 

 tions. For more information on 

 any of the projects described, con- 

 tact the Sea Grant office in 

 Raleigh (919/737-2454). 



Shark Creole. French- 

 fried squid. Eel salad. 

 Forget their slightly un- 

 savory reputations — the 

 sharks, squid and eel 

 proved eminently edible 

 at the third annual 

 "Strange Seafoods Spectacular," held 

 August 16 in Beaufort. 



The festival, organized by the 

 Hampton Mariners Museum in 

 Beaufort, was designed to give some 

 neglected seafoods a little public ex- 

 posure. Cooks and seafood experts 

 from the area, including a group of Sea 

 Grant food science technicians from 

 the North Carolina State University 

 Seafood Lab in Morehead City, 

 prepared the food and served it from 

 warmers set up in a courtyard near the 

 museum. 



The expected crowd of a few hun- 

 dred people didn't show up. The unex- 

 pected crowd of over a thousand, 

 however, did. 



Bob Hines, Sea Grant's marine ad- 

 visory agent in the Morehead City 

 area, watched the eight pounds of rock 

 shrimp he'd broiled disappear in less 

 than 15 minutes. A seafood pizza, 

 prepared by Joyce Taylor from the 

 seafood lab, played a new variation on 

 a traditional theme: instead of sausage 

 and mushrooms, flaked fish and 

 shellfish. 



The rest of the menu? Among the 

 most popular dishes were eel Newburg, 

 sea urchin eggs, rock shrimp casserole 

 and batter-fried ray. 



The museum has printed a complete 

 set of recipes for all 38 of the dishes 

 served at the festival. The booklet 



costs $2 and can be obtained by writing 

 the Hampton Mariners Museum, 120 

 Turner St., Beaufort, N. C. 28516. 



In recent years a seafood delicacy, 

 swordfish, has been found off the 

 North Carolina coast and a few fisher- 

 men are now beginning to cash in on 

 this treasure. 



Jim Bahen, a Sea Grant marine ad- 

 visory agent in the Wilmington area, 

 has helped several commercial fisher- 

 men at Wrightsville Beach rig their 

 boats for swordfishing. With swordfish 

 fetching between $1.65 and $2.25 a 

 pound at the market, fishermen are be- 

 ing paid handsomely for the invest- 

 ment it takes to catch the 100- to 700- 

 pound fish. 



Bahen says the market for swordfish 

 is primarily in New England, but a few 

 local retailers and restaurant owners 

 are also purchasing it. The fish, 

 sometimes called the "prime rib of the 

 sea," is cut into steaks that have plea- 

 sant texture and flavor. 



Bahen is also helping recreational 

 fishermen to land swordfish and at 

 least one fisherman has caught a 500- 

 pounder off the North Carolina coast. 

 Swordfish usually can be found 90 to 

 150 miles off the state's shoreline in the 

 deep waters of the warm Gulf Stream. 



Researchers are ask- 

 ing recreational and 

 charter boat fishermen, 

 along with commercial 

 long liners, for a little 

 help these days in their 

 study of large game fish 

 such as blue marlin, white marlin, 

 sailfish, hammerjack and tuna. 



Sea Grant agent Jim Bahen is asking 

 on behalf of researchers that sport 

 fishermen tag their catches if they plan 

 to release them. That way, if the fish is 

 caught again, scientists will know how 

 far the fish has traveled, its weight gain 

 and other vital statistics. 



Fishermen who catch a fish that 

 already has been tagged are asked to 

 send the tag to the address listed on the 

 tag, along with information about 



where the fish was caught and its 

 weight and length. 



If you would like to help researchers, 

 you may get a free tagging kit by con- 

 tacting Jim Bahen at the North 

 Carolina Marine Resources Center at 

 Fort Fisher. 



Xhose sure-footed off- 

 road vehicles (ORVs) 

 can make tracks almost 

 anywhere. And that, ac- 

 cording to some people in 

 Nags Head, is just the 

 trouble. 



Since 1974, Nags Head has regulated 

 the use of ORVs on the town's beaches 

 and barrier dunes. Residents hoped 

 that the rules would protect the grasses 

 that help anchor the dunes and 

 stabilize the shoreline. 



This summer, after citizens had once 

 again met and voiced concern over 

 ORVs, Nags Head lopped a month off 

 each end of its beach-driving season, 

 leaving only the months between Oct. 

 1 and May 1 open to beach traffic. 



After hearing an earful of pros and 

 cons about ORVs, the town's com- 

 missioners decided that some scientific 

 know-how might help settle the 

 debate. 



That's where Paul Hosier came in. 

 Hosier, a Sea Grant researcher, has 

 been studying the effects of ORVs on 

 the grasses and dunes at Cape Hat- 

 teras. He has found that, although 

 stands of dune grass can recover from 

 occasional traffic, constant or regular 

 tramplings quickly kill the grasses and 

 bare the dunes to the wind. Hosier is 

 trying to determine exactly how much 

 driving the grasses can stand. 



Nags Head asked Hosier to expand 

 his research to include a two-mile 

 stretch of beach at the town's southern 

 end, an area the commissioners made 

 off-limits to ORVs. The protected 

 stretch is adjacent to some well- 

 traveled shoreline near one of the 

 town's beach-access ramps. 



With samples from both protected 



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