Why does this fish need our help?

• Author: Chesnin, Noah

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It's 5:30 on a mid-March morning and the temperature is hovering at 28 degrees. With only one boat landing its catch, the Boston Fish Pier is relatively quiet. Despite a grueling fishing trip and an eight-hour overnight journey from Georges Bank to Boston Harbor, the crew can't rest yet.

They have to unload, sort, weigh and clean about 50,000 pounds of pollock before sunrise when the buyers for local groceries, fish markets and restaurants arrive to pick over and purchase the fish. Everyone is on a tight schedule so that the fish can be resold fresh to Boston area shoppers and diners before the end of the day. Although this sequence of events has been repeated daily for hundreds of years in port cities across New England, nowadays there are dramatically fewer fish being brought to shore, and fewer associated jobs on boats and docks.

But the fish that drew two CLF staff members to the fish pier that morning was nowhere to be found. The Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus), sold as "ocean catfish" to Boston diners, has been a critical part of the ocean ecology off New England for thousands of years. Best known for its toothy grin, what the wolffish lacks in physical appearance, it makes up for with a fascinating life history.

Wolffish annually mate in pairs during spawning season and can live up to 20 years. They can grow up to four feet long and weigh as much as 40 pounds. The fish's name comes from the large mouth on its massive head, replete with a formidable set of wayward canine teeth in desperate need of orthodontic work. The wolf of the sea primarily eats crustaceans. Using its massive molars in the rear of its mouth and a hard boney palette, the wolffish can crush whole clams, scallops, lobsters and crabs which, to other species, are inedible. Some researchers believe that wolffish are among the major predators of urchins and green crabs, two species that, if left unchecked, could have widespread detrimental ecological impacts on the Gulf of Maine.

A Wolf in Trouble in a Former Sea of Abundance

The Gulf of Maine is New England's regional sea, bounded by the massive undersea ridges that form Georges Bank and Browns Bank 300 miles east of Boston. These bountiful waters sustained human populations for centuries and enticed Europeans across the Atlantic in the late 1400s. Writing in 1605 about Captain George Waymouth's voyage to New England, James Roiser described a sailor who "cast out a hooke, and before he judged...