New Harbor lobsterman Dexter Benner hauled in one of his lobster traps July 18 to find an unexpected occupant.
After several days of speculation, Benner and a neighbor were able to identify his bycatch as a gray triggerfish.
Bruce Joule, a marine recreational fisheries group leader with the Dept. of Marine Resources, confirmed their conclusion.
According to Joule, the range of the gray triggerfish is from Nova Scotia to Argentina.
“It is not very common in the Gulf of Maine,” he wrote in an e-mail. It probably “drifted in from the Gulf Stream, possibly during a storm.”
Aimee Hayden-Roderiques, manager of the Maine State Aquarium, expanded on Joule’s response.
When gray triggerfish show up in the area – an unusual “but not rare” occurrence – “it is because the Gulf Stream has warm water eddies that have spiraled off into the Gulf of Maine that bring all sorts of strange things into our harbors and into our fishing gear,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Although the aquarium receives more and more calls every year about the fish, they usually start in August and September, when the water is warmer.
Hayden-Roderiques said “sustained warming trends” in the area are causing “all kinds” of unusual species to show up earlier in the season.
The aquarium currently has two triggerfish on display, both donated recently by Boothbay region fishermen. It also has a red porgy, “which is not typically found above New York, but was caught on a fishing line here in Boothbay in early July,” she wrote.
The first report of the gray triggerfish in Boothbay was in 1949, when the fish was discovered in Linekin Bay.
Benner and his fellow fishermen have never seen a gray triggerfish in New Harbor before and suspected its appearance might have to do with this year’s warmer waters.
The fish swam into a trap in about 25 feet of water off New Harbor, Benner said. He remembers expressing his astonishment to his sternman.
“I says, ‘Woah, we got something here!'” he said.
The fish is about the shape and size of a football, although it’s thin like a flounder. It’s gray-green in color, with distinctive dorsal fins, stripes and other markings.
“I think it’s just a little lost with all the warm weather,” Benner said.
“The ocean is unbelievably warm this year,” he said, with reports of temperatures in the harbor reaching 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
As of July 24, the fish continues to make its home in a lobster crate at the New Harbor Fisherman’s Co-op. Benner said he fed the fish herring, which it ate, and it appears to be lively and happy.
Hayden-Roderiques said the aquarium will contact Benner to discuss a possible move for the fish to the Boothbay Harbor aquarium.
