Longfin inshore squid ( loligo pealeii ) may not be on the menu, but it is an important local seafood that has grown scarce.

Recreational and commercial fishermen are perplexed, wondering how a once profitable and abundant bait seems to have disappeared. Tackle shop owners can’t find enough of it. The draggers working in Nantucket Sound have had slim pickings.

Bluefin tuna — the center of a highly lucrative commercial fishery and heated controversy about overfishing — will not be listed as an endangered species, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week.

“NOAA is formally designating both the western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna as species of concern under the Endangered Species Act,” a press release that accompanied the decision said.

More than 40 boats and as many captains received the annual blessing of the fleet on Sunday to begin the boating season, which for many is well underway.

Menemsha Harbor is made up of commercial fishing boats and a wide variety of different-sized recreational boats; nearly all of them were honored. A crowd gathered for a church service next to Menemsha Texaco, right next to the Squid Row bench. They shared a moment of camaraderie and got a blessing of safe passage for the season ahead from Rev. Arlene Bodge of the Chilmark Community Church.

A cookout for a den of Vineyard Cub Scouts and their parents last Thursday night had an exciting surprise ending when two young scouts discovered an old treasure box deep in the woods.

The rusted World War II-era metal box contained a cache of gold and jewelry, knives and an old revolver. The box and its contents were turned over to the Oak Bluffs police.