FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



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1880 



1890 1900 1910 



1920 



1930 1940 1950 



I960 



1970 



Figure 6. — Annual commercial landings of blue crab in 

 the State of New York, 1880-1970. 



abundance generated by nutrient enrichment in 

 the estuaries (McHugh, 1969a), as was suggest- 

 ed also for striped bass (Mansueti, 1961) . There 

 is no direct evidence to support this hypothesis, 

 but it is not untenable. Other than the decade 

 of increased landings of blue crab which began 

 about 1929 in New York, and a longer period of 

 highly variable but substantially increased catch- 

 es in the middle Atlantic region which ended in 

 the late 1950s (McHugh, 1971),' there has been 

 no similar continuing upward trend in blue crab 

 production north of Chesapeake Bay. It is in- 

 teresting to speculate that the enrichment of 

 coastal waters and estuaries in the middle At- 

 lantic region of the United States from domestic 

 and industrial wastes may have stimulated blue 

 crab production for a while, then became a lim- 

 iting factor as eutrophication proceeded too far. 



SHAD 



The anadromous American shad (Alosa sap- 

 idissima) , like the salmon, was a popular fish 

 with the early settlers, wherever it was found 

 along the Atlantic coast. Large catches have 

 been reported in the early days from all major 

 river systems. The Hudson River was one of 

 the major producers, and maximum landings on 

 record in New York State were more than 4 mil- 

 lion pounds (2,000 metric tons) in 1889 (Fig- 



' McHugh, J. L. 1971. Domestic wrangles and inter- 

 national tangles — the fisheries of the Middle Atlantic 

 Bight. Unpublished manuscript, 237 p., filed at Woodrow 

 Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, 

 D.C. 



ure 7) . From 1880 to 1901 inclusive the average 

 annual catch was over 3 million pounds (1,400 

 metric tons) ; from 1904 to 1935 inclusive it was 

 only about one-tenth of this; then the catch be- 

 gan a steady rise to a peak of almost 3 million 

 pounds (1,300 metric tons) in 1945, followed by 

 an abrupt decline to less than a million pounds 

 (275 metric tons) in 1949. Shad landings in 

 New York for the last 3 years have been very 

 much less than 100,000 pounds (about 16.5 met- 

 ric tons). 



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1880 



1890 



1900 



i9IO 



1920 



1930 



1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 7. — Annual commercial landings of shad in the 

 State of New York, 1880-1970. 



This continued decline to what amounts to 

 virtual collapse of the fishery is disturbing, espe- 

 cially in the light of the following statement by 

 the Biological Section of the Scientific Commit- 

 tee of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Com- 

 mission (1958a): "The Hudson River investi- 

 gation has been completed and the fishery can 

 now be managed successfully." What has gone 

 wrong in little more than a decade? 



The report cited above, and another special 

 publication of the Atlantic States Marine Fisher- 

 ies Commission (1958b) completely ignored the 

 sharp increase in shad landings in New York, 

 and indeed in the entire middle Atlantic region 

 including Chesapeake Bay. At the time these re- 

 ports were prepared the shad fishery of this 

 entire region had swung from a maximum catch 

 of nearly 36 million pounds (16,250 metric tons) 

 in 1897 to a low of 5 million (2,270 metric tons) 

 in 1935, to a secondary peak of about 12 million 

 pounds (5,500 metric tons) in 1944 and again in 

 1945, and down again to less than 6 million 

 pounds (2,700 metric tons) in 1958. It is dif- 

 ficult to reconcile the pompous statement quoted 

 above with the past and subsequent history of 

 the fishery (Figure 7). It is especially embar- 

 rassing to this author, who was chairman of the 

 committee that issued these two reports. 



592 



