CAPE MAY — The Retriever, a baby blue, rust-stained trawler, was docked outside a Cape May fishery last week while its catch — 200,000 pounds of slippery, white squid — was emptied from the hull.
After three days on the water, the 145-foot-long boat had pulled into Lund’s Fisheries in the middle of the night, creating a morning-long bustle.
A pressurized tank sucked the catch from the Retriever through a tangle of wide hoses. Mixed with refrigerated sea water, the squid rushed through 800 feet of pipe toward a pair of conveyor belts set up inside the company’s processing plant.
In New Jersey, it is peak season for Illex squid, which is much more likely to wind up in a bait bucket on a commercial fishing vessel than on a dinner plate at a neighborhood seafood restaurant. Yet, the lowly squid has a story to tell: it shows how the Gulf Coast oil spill is rippling through the nation’s economy and pinching New Jersey’s $168 million seafood industry.
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