Moirs Environmental Dialogues

Patrick Paquette, a community organizer who represents bass fishing organizations in Massachusetts and Matthew McKenzie, Maritime History Professor at the University of Connecticut, talk with Rob about where have all the herring gone and how Cape Cod has changed over two centuries from a vibrant fishing community to something completely different. Patrick Paquette explains early efforts to save herring by collaborating with diverse interest groups through the CHOIR collaboration “where different voices needed to learn to sing in harmony.” He also noted a striped bass food shortage along the East Coast caused by industrial-scale fishing of coastal herring, mackerel and menhaden. Prof McKenzie tells the social and ecological history of the rise and demise of Cape Cod’s coastal fisheries in the nineteenth century. His book, Clearing the Coastline, includes Thoreau’s thoughts on Cape Cod fisheries and how these were adjusted by posthumous publishers to better fit what they wished to promote. Matt also tells of