10/25 – Cornwall Landing, HRM 57: Scientists at The University of Maine’s Pelagic Fisheries Lab have been conducting a long-term Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) diet study through a collaboration with the Maine Department of Martine Resources.

They have discovered some interesting finds in tuna bellies. In the stomach of a 737 lb. bluefin tuna, caught in July 2023 at the Casco Bay Bluefin Bonanza (South Portland, Maine), was a plastic American Littoral Society (Sandy Hook, NJ) tag that had come from a striped bass. Bluefin tuna can migrate more than 6,000 miles in a year. They are unique in that they are warm blooded and can withstand water temperatures from 37–86 degrees Fahrenheit often diving deeper than 3,000 feet. Somewhere in that immense depth, this bluefin tuna encountered our Hudson River striped bass.

The striped bass had been tagged on May 29, 2023, in the shadow of Storm King Mountain, at Cornwall-on-Hudson (NY), 65 miles upriver from the Verrazano Narrows and the open sea. When released, the fish measured 38.25-inches and weighed 18.6 lbs. The bluefin with the tag inside was then caught two months later 500 miles up the New England coast. The striped bass had been digested long ago leaving the tag behind.
- Maine Department of Marine Resources

[in the post-spawning season, striped bass, especially adults, exit the estuary and disperse along the Atlantic coast into northern New England — as this one did — as well as south to the DelMarVa region and the Carolinas. Tom Lake]