FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



estimated sport catch in 1965 for the Atlantic 

 coast was between 5 and 6 times the weight of 

 the commercial catch in 1970. The striped bass 

 is an anadromous coastal species, and it has not 

 been reported in catches of foreign fleets fishing 

 offshore. 



It seems unlikely that the great increase in 

 striped bass landings over a 35-year period has 

 come about through an equivalent increase in 

 fishing effort, for this species has been popular 

 as a commercial and recreational species for a 

 long time. It has been suggested (Mansueti, 

 1961) that the species has been able to take ad- 

 vantage of increased nutrient loads in its nursery 

 areas in Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere and that 

 the increased catch has been largely, if not com- 

 pletely, caused by a real increase in abundance. 

 This is entirely hypothesis, and data probably 

 do not exist with which to test it. A small piece 

 of suggestive evidence on a closely related spe- 

 cies has been published recently. Tsai (1970), 

 examining changes in fish stocks of the Little 

 Patuxent River, Md., over a period of about a 

 decade, found that some species had decreased 

 considerably in abundance and others had in- 

 creased. Among the species which had increased 

 was the semi-anadromous white perch (Morone 

 americana) , which has a life history very similar 

 to that of the striped bass during the first 2 years 

 of its life when it does not move very far from 

 the influence of the river in which it was born. 



8 r- 

 17 



UJ 



4 



o 



Q 



□ 



z 



_L 



1880 



1890 1900 



1910 



1920 



1930 1940 1950 I960 1970 



Figure 27. — Annual commercial landings of northern 

 lobster in the State of New York, 1880-1970. 



inshore. The second has been the increasing 

 exploitation of hitherto unused lobster resources 

 by trawls and pots in relatively deep water on 

 the continental shelf. Graham (1968) stated 

 that several inshore species along the Atlantic 

 coast, including lobster, were producing catches 

 at or beyond levels of maximum sustainable yield 

 and that from now on the fluctuations in annual 

 landings would be the result of fluctuations in 

 recruitment or availability. The relation be- 

 tween the offshore and inshore lobster stocks is 

 not completely understood, but recent investi- 

 gations seem to be leading to the conclusion that 

 the offshore lobster fishery may be harvesting 

 a distinct stock. If so, it cannot yet be deter- 

 mined how large a catch it can sustain. The fu- 

 ture of lobster landings in New York would ap- 

 pear at this time to be uncertain. 



NORTHERN LOBSTER 



CONCLUSIONS 



Landings of lobster in New York also have 

 been increasing for about 25 years. The max- 

 imum catch recorded in the earlier period was a 

 little over a million pounds (470 metric tons) 

 in 1921 (Figure 27). Then the catch fell oflf 

 rather steadily to a low of about 150,000 pounds 

 (64 metric tons) in 1945. In 1970 about 1.65 

 million pounds (750 metric tons) were landed 

 in New York. The recent increase has been 

 attributed to two phenomena. The first has been 

 a general decline in coastal water temperatures 

 for the last 10 years, which apparently has 

 brought about a southward shift in the distri- 

 bution of lobster and an increase in pot catches 



Consideration of trends in landings of some 28 

 species of marine fish and shellfish in the State 

 of New York shows that the variable commercial 

 fishery production of the State has been main- 

 tained by shifting from one species or stock to 

 another as landings of each resource have risen 

 to maxima and then declined, often to very low 

 levels. The reasons for some of these declines 

 or increases are known, but trends in landings 

 of many species remain unexplained. At any 

 point in time in the history of the coastal fish- 

 eries of New York, landings of some species are 

 rising, and others declining, and there is no 

 reason to believe that the pattern will change. 



604 



