Sports
"Monster Shark" Tournament Returns to Oak Bluffs, Perhaps for the Last Time
The controversial tournament may take its 2014 business elsewhere after Oak Bluffs voters approved a non-binding referendum making future shark tournaments catch-and-release only.
Will this be the last year the Boston Big Game Club brings its Monster Shark Fishing Tournament to Oak Bluffs?
In April, shortly before town voters approved a non-binding referendum declaring that in future years shark tournaments must be catch-and-release, tournament organizer Steve James (in video) told town selectmen that "a catch-and-release tournament would yield about 2 percent of the interest, both in terms of participation and in terms of viewing.
"Nobody comes to an all-release tournament," James said.
Opponents of the Oak Bluffs tournament have spoken out on Martha's Vineyard Patch with comments like:
- Shark populations are plummeting worldwide, and these tournaments target the largest, most reproductively viable individuals, effectively killing hundred more unborn sharks.
- The sharks are dismembered (sometimes while still alive) in grotesque displays, and in front of children who are encouraged to revel in the death and dismemberment.
- It is nothing more than a drunkfest bringing more attention for the wrong reasons.
Rowdy spectators have been a big part of the problem during the annual shark tournament, selectmen said during their meeting with James.
"There are outsiders here that we have never seen before," said Selectman Michael Santoro. "It's an element this town doesn't want to see."
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In past years, Oak Bluffs traditionally charged for one boat on a mooring and the rest who raft out, sometimes as many as six vessels to a mooring, are free. The town therefore loses money while encouraging rowdy mooring parties in an overcrowded harbor.
This year, Harbormaster Todd Alexander will charge the extra boats as a way of both making money for the town and decreasing the number of spectator boats in the harbor.
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Alexander said that the partying had increased in the last four years or so and had now hit a tipping point. “It is a scene now,” he said. “They come here to party. The word is out, this is the place to be.”
But if town selectmen stand behind the voters' non-binding referendum, this party may be moving on in 2014: James told selectmen the Rhode Island city of Newport was interested in becoming the the Monster Shark Tournament's new host.
Posted July 15, 2013.
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