FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 3 



sponse to natural environmental change and a 

 new offshore lobster fishery on previously unex- 

 ploited stocks. With striped bass it has been spec- 

 ulated that man-made changes in the environ- 

 ment actually have caused substantial increases 

 in abundance. The recent increase in hard clam 

 production may have a similar cause, but eco- 

 nomic factors may also have played a part. 



These trends and their relationships can be 

 visualized more clearly by grouping species with 

 more or less similar chronological patterns of 

 landings (Figure 28) . The seven groupings here 

 illustrated were derived according to the decade 

 in which the maximum catch was reached. The 

 result forms almost a "textbook example" of the 

 evolution and decline of a regional fishery. 



Although the causes of most short-term 

 changes in the landings are complex, the long- 

 term deterioration of certain formerly impor- 

 tant fisheries leads to the uncomfortable conclu- 

 sion that lack of management and overfishing 

 probably are important causes. The oyster, once 

 by far the most important seafood resource in 

 New York by weight or by landed value, today 

 no longer ranks among the 10 most important 

 species. Menhaden, an industrial fish, once the 

 dominant species in New York landings by 

 weight, and far outweighing all other species 

 combined, today ranks eighth by weight, and 

 the industry on which it was based is close to 

 collapse. The oyster catch has been largely a 

 cultivated crop, and in New York the efficiency 

 of cultivation has been superior to that in any 

 area except the Pacific Northwest, The recent 

 decline of the industry has been caused by nat- 

 ural disasters with which the industry was un- 

 able to cope. But many of the problems could 

 have been avoided by applying knowledge of the 

 ecology of oysters, according to MacKenzie 

 (1970), and the potential yield is far greater 

 than the industry has ever realized. In other 



Figure 28. — Annual commercial landings of fish and 

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

 cies have been grouped according to the decade in which 

 the greatest landings were made and the groups are ar- 

 ranged approximately in chronological order of maximum 

 landings. The two peaks in the second graph from the 

 bottom do not represent a shift from one species to an- 

 other. See text for details. 



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