FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



fish catches. According to Perlmutter, Miller, 

 and Poole (1956) weakfish available to New 

 York fishermen belong to two distinct stocks, 

 those which spawn locally and those which are 

 southern spawned. These authors said that 

 weakfish are abundant oflF New York only when 

 the southern stock is large. 



The recreational catch of weakfish in 1965 was 

 estimated to be only 178,000 pounds (81 metric 

 tons). It probably was considerably greater 

 than this in 1970, but it appears that this is pri- 

 marily a commercial species still. 



The reason for the great decline in catches of 

 weakfish is not known. OflF Virginia in 1936 it 

 was about 10 times as abundant as it was in 1946, 

 according to the catch rate in pound nets (Mc- 

 Hugh and Bailey, 1957) . The increased catches 

 in New York in the 1940s probably were caused 

 by the increased demand for fish during the war, 

 as already mentioned for several other species. 

 Weakfish have been taken by trawlers in rela- 

 tively deep water in winter, but the species has 

 not been recorded in foreign catches off the At- 

 lantic coast. Large numbers of young fish are 

 killed by shrimp trawls in the Carolinas and in 

 pound nets in Chesapeake Bay. Some people be- 

 lieve that this attrition has been responsible for 

 the decline, but this source of mortality must 

 have declined with the decline of the Atlantic 

 coast pound net and shrimp fisheries. 



54 



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1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 10. — Annual commercial landings of sea mussels 

 in the State of New York, 1887-1970. 



BAY SCALLOP 



Bay scallop are in great demand and bring 

 a high price. Landings in New York sometimes 

 exceeded 1 million pounds of meats (520 metric 

 tons in 1921) prior to 1932 (Figure 11), but the 

 catch dropped sharply thereafter. The decline 

 has been attributed to destruction of eelgrass 



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1880 1890 



1900 1910 



1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



SEA MUSSEL 



Mussels are not in great demand as human 

 food in the United States. Landings in New 

 York State have been relatively small, seldom ex- 

 ceeding 1 million pounds of meats (500 metric 

 tons). In 1908, however, a catch of over 8 mil- 

 lion pounds of meats (3,800 metric tons) was re- 

 ported, and in the 1940s (Figure 10) landings 

 increased for a few years, probably because mus- 

 sels were valued as a source of Vitamin D dur- 

 ing the second world war. This may be a valu- 

 able latent resource if markets can be developed. 

 The possibilities for aquaculture also should be 

 investigated. Very high yields have been re- 

 ported with hanging culture of mussels in 

 Europe. 



Figure 11. — Annual commercial landings of bay scallop 

 in the State of New York, 1901-1970. 



(Zostera) beds, by disease (Labyrinthula) . As 

 the eelgrass recovered, bay scallop became more 

 abundant; and by 1962, landings in New York 

 were up almost to a million pounds again. The 

 abrupt decline to a low in 1967 may have been 

 caused by overfishing. 



HADDOCK 



Haddock landings in New York apparently 

 were at their greatest from 1908 to 1929 (Fig- 

 ure 12). The largest landing on record was in 

 1926 at about 17 million pounds (7,700 metric 



594 



