Study Confirms Year-Round Squibnocket Stripers | MVTimes

The MBL's Striped Bass Magic program is partnering with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head-Aquinnah to tag striped bass.

Year-round Vineyarders can welcome some newly confirmed neighbors — 19 striped bass in the Squibnocket/Menemsha pond complex.

In an effort to better understand the habitat of one of the Island’s faltering herring populations, the Natural Resources Department of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) surgically inserted probes last fall into 20 of the ponds’ striped bass.

By April, all but one of the tagged fish remained — a lone migrator beelined, or bass-lined, to Block Island.

The striped bass in the pond complex, local wildlife officials say, are not to blame for the herrings’ numbers. Offshore trawlers, they say, are the overwhelming cause. But bass are nonetheless a predatory pressure on herring, and the fact that a significant population remains year-round informs further questions about the area.

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Source: MVTimes | Study confirms year-round Squibnocket stripers