McHUGH: MARINE FISHERIES OF NEW YORK 



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 1880 



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1890 



1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 12. — Annual commercial landings of haddock in 

 the State of New York, 1897-1970. 



tons) . Following- a substantial drop in the 1930s 

 the catch reached a secondary maximum in 1939, 

 dropped to an average annual catch of about 

 8 million pounds (3,600 metric tons), to 1946 

 inclusive, then declined sharply, and remained 

 exti-emely low for the last two decades. This 

 decline of local haddock landings probably came 

 about through the general decline of the New 

 York trawl fleet after the war, for landings in 

 New England, mostly from Georges Bank, re- 

 mained remarkably steady from the late 1930s 

 to the middle 1960s (Graham, 1968). Recent 

 overfishing has brought the Georges Bank had- 

 dock stock to a very low level (Edwards, 1968), 

 and it is unlikely that haddock will again become 

 an important component of New York landings 

 for some time, if ever. 



TILEFISH 



No record of tilefish (Lopholatihis chamaele- 

 onticeps) landings in New York is available pri- 

 or to 1929 in statistics published by the Federal 

 Government. Yet Bigelow and Schroeder 

 (1953) stated that 11,641,500 pounds (5,285 met- 

 ric tons) of this species were caught off New 

 England from July 1, 1916, to July 1, 1917. 

 These authors concluded that the drop to less 

 than half a million pounds (220 metric tons) in 

 1947 (about 42% of it in New York) was caused 

 by a lack of demand. 



The tilefish is of special interest to ecologists, 

 although now a minor commercial species, be- 

 cause it inhabits a narrow band of ocean bottom 

 at the edge of the continental shelf from Nova 

 Scotia to southern Florida and in the Gulf of 



Mexico. OflF New England and the middle At- 

 lantic coast it is restricted to a zone of relatively 

 warm water of about 8° to 12 °C at depths of 

 82 to 360 m. Within 3 years after its existence 

 was discovered in 1879 almost due east of New 

 York Bight, the tilefish resource suffered a mass 

 mortality. Large numbers of dead tilefish were 

 reported floating at the surface over the edge 

 of the continental shelf from off Delaware Bay 

 to New England. The kill was attributed by 

 Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) to a sudden shift 

 or dissolution of this warm intrusion. The re- 

 duction in abundance was so drastic that no tile- 

 fish was taken in the area until 1892, and sub- 

 stantial commercial fishing on the resource did 

 not resume until 1898. It is thus established 

 that the tilefish is subject to very wide fluctu- 

 ations in abundance from natural causes. 



When tilefish first appeared in the commercial 

 fishery statistics for New York State in 1929, 

 landings were about 2.5 million pounds (1,180 

 metric tons). The catch fluctuated between 1 

 million (454 metric tons) and 2.5 million pounds 

 in the period 1929 to 1935, then dropped sharply 

 to nearly zero in the middle 1940s (Figure 13). 



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1880 1890 1900 1910 



1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 13. — Annual commercial landings of tilefish in 

 the State of New York, 1929-1970, 



A secondary maximum of just over a million 

 pounds was reached in 1950, and subsequently 

 landings in New York dropped steadily to a very 

 low level. The collapse of this fishery in New 

 York may have been caused by lack of demand, 

 by the general decline of the trawl fisheries of the 

 State after the war, by a natural decline in 

 abundance, or by overfishing. Tilefish are not 

 listed separately in the statistical bulletins of 

 ICNAF, but are included under "other ground- 

 fish." In 1968 this category included a catch 

 of 172,000 metric tons of mixed fish, which 



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