FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



commercial landings have not been used more 

 frequently to describe the condition of the fish- 

 eries of an area, for, used with caution and with 

 an understanding of their limitations, these sta- 

 tistics can be most revealing (McHugh and 

 Bailey, 1957). Considered in conjunction with 

 existing knowledge of the biology and life his- 

 tories of the stocks of fish and shellfish, they also 

 can be valuable background materials for plan- 

 ning research, development, and management of 

 the fisheries and the resources upon which they 

 depend. 



For these reasons, on beginning to examine the 

 fisheries of a region it is useful to turn to the 

 published record. It is not enough to consider 

 total landings. The history of each fishery must 

 be examined, for the species composition of the 

 catch may be very different at different points 

 on the time scale. For example, in the State of 

 New York, as in many States, the ranking of 

 species in landed weight in 1880 was greatly dif- 

 ferent than in 1970. American oyster (Cras- 

 sostrea virginica) , the dominant food species in 

 1880, was a very minor component of the catch 

 in the 1960s. Surf clam (Spisula solidissima) , 

 not recorded in the catch until about 1900 and a 

 minor resource until about 1950, now dominates. 



1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 1. — Total annual commercial landings of fish and 

 shellfish in the State of New York, 1880-1970. The 

 lower line is the menhaden catch. In this, as in the other 

 figures, broken lines have been used to join points be- 

 tween which one or more years' data are missing. 



Examination of catches of a few years, se- 

 lected at more or less regular intervals over the 

 90-year period, is not adequate to tell the whole 

 story. Inevitably, some species, which were im- 

 portant for a while and then declined in their 

 contribution to the total catch, will be missed. 

 It is necessary to study the catch by species or 

 by stock of fish for all years in which data are 

 available. The work of Dr. Sette and his col- 

 leagues about 35 years ago, in improving the 

 basis for collection of commercial catch statistics, 

 has made this possible. The story that these 

 records tell is most revealing in the light of pre- 

 sent problems of the coastal fisheries and the 

 steps that have been proposed to solve them. 



I am indebted to Miss Karen Henrickson for 

 her careful preparation of the illustrations. 



HISTORY OF TOTAL LANDINGS IN 

 NEW YORK 



To analyze total landings intelligently the data 

 must be separated into at least two subsets. In 

 many coastal States, especially along the Atlantic 

 and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, 

 industrial fishery resources dominate the marine 

 commercial fish catch, and the history of total 

 landings is largely a history of the industrial 

 fisheries, primarily Atlantic menhaden, Bre- 

 voortia tyrannus (Figure 1). Total landings of 

 food fish and shellfish have had a different his- 

 tory, which for New York apparently can be 

 separated into three phases (Figure 2). 



The first such phase, covering 1880 to 1926, 

 was characterized by wide fluctuations in food 

 fish landings in the State. Data are available for 

 only nine scattered years, and their accuracy is 

 not known, especially for the early years. The 

 peak year in this period was 1908, with a re- 

 ported food fish catch of about 54 million pounds 

 (24,500 metric tons). More than 88% of this 

 catch consisted of 13 genera: American oyster, 

 weakfish (Cynoscion regalis) , sea mussels {My- 

 tilus and Volsella spp.), flounders (probably 

 mostly summer flounder, Paralichthys dentatus; 

 winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes american- 

 tis; and yellowtail flounder, Limanda ferrugin- 

 ea) , bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix), Atlantic 



586 



