Equipped with many rows of teeth, its jaws can quickly masticate shrimp, worms, squid, lobster, and virtually any fish. Though edible, perhaps tasting like scallops, skates have never been deliberately targeted by American fisherman. During the past few decades, fishing fleets have intensified their efforts, depleting populations of groundfish off the New England coast. Commercial fishermen have increasingly invested in large, efficient trawls and dredges. Although this gear is deployed to bring in cod, haddock, pollack, or flounder, it scoops up everything in its path as it plows the ocean floor, including the unintended skates.
Commercial fishermen can affect even very young barndoor skates.
Each skate egg is surrounded by its own leathery case, about five inches long and three inches wide. While it incubates in the ocean, which can be up to two years, it can be picked up or crushed by trawls. After it is hatched, it is still not free from danger by fishermen. No More Another problem for the barndoor skates is the way it reproduces. Since the species lives in the absence of aggressive predators, its reproduction mechanism evolved differently than some female fish that can lay one million eggs annually.