Vanderbilt’s Whale Shark & the Sunrise Fish Company

Thursday, September 19

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Tickets: $10 | Members Free

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Ron Schaper will give a lecture at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum on Vanderbilt’s Whale Shark and the Island Life of the Last East Coast Ocean Pound Trap Fishermen.

Schaper, whose uncles caught the16,000-pound, 32-foot whale shark displayed in the Vanderbilt Museum’s Habitat, will speak about his family and the hundreds of others that made their living as fishermen, and the fascinating history of commercial fishing on Long Island.

Schaper is the author of Setting Leaders: The Island Life of the Last East Coast Ocean Pound Trap Fishermen (2024). He will examine how a decision made by the influential urban planner Robert Moses changed the course of the fishing industry on Long Island forever.

In 1935, the State Boat Channel was dredged, and the sand was deposited on the north side of the channel, creating Havemeyer Point Island – where Moses relocated the Schaper family’s Sunrise Fish Company, and the Short Beach and other fishing businesses. The fishermen built large boardwalks on their section of land, which had been divided into distinct areas for the fish companies. Revered by the locals who fished, labored, and dwelt there, this new Island became known as Fisherman’s Island. This reconfiguration of land, coupled with hard labor, left a legacy for generations of families that to this day cherish the bounty of the ocean.

That same year, the Schaper brothers caught the huge whale shark off Fire Island.  William K. Vanderbilt II purchased it from the Schaper brothers to be featured amidst his other natural history specimens and dioramas. The northernmost catch on record at that time, the shark is reportedly the world’s largest example of fish taxidermy.

Schaper will reveal details of this story and other fascinating tales and experiences of his family’s Sunrise Fish Company.

This intriguing lecture will take place in the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium Theater. Copies of Schaper’s book, Setting Leaders: The Island Life of the Last East Coast Ocean Pound Trap Fishermen, will be available for purchase and inscription.