PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government says two projects designed to improve the future of the monkfish fishery will receive more than $3.7 million in grants.
The grants are going to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology and Cornell University Cooperative Extension.
The UMass project will tag juvenile monkfish to improve growth estimates for the fish. Cornell’s project is a two-year study of the genetic population structure of monkfish.
The monkfish fishery was worth more than $18 million in 2014. It is based in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Fishermen also land monkfish in other states including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Maine.
The projects will be funded by the sale of monkfish harvested through an annual “research set aside” program. That program does not use federal money.