STUDIES OF GEORGES BANK HADDOCK 



Part I: Landings by Pounds, Numbers, and Sizes of Fish 



By Howard A. Schuck, Fishery Research Biologist 



The haddock, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, has 

 been New England's most valuable fishery re- 

 source, and one of the most important in the 

 United States, for nearly three decades. In the 

 early days, this fish was little sought and the 

 annual New England catch was small — only about 

 40-odd million pounds until well into the 1900's. 

 With the development of filleting and freezing 

 methods the market for haddock grew, and during 

 the 1920's New England landings increased 

 greatly. They reached a peak of about 250 

 million pounds in 1929, but after that production 

 declined rapidly. 



From Georges Bank, source of most United 

 States haddock, production dropped from about 

 223 million pounds in 1929 to 115 million pounds 

 in 1931. In addition, an index of abundance 

 indicates that the size of the stock on Georges 

 Bank declined greatly over these years. 



The decline of haddock landings and abundance 

 aroused concern in the fishing industry, and in 

 1930 funds were made available to the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries (now the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service) to study the haddock and the 

 haddock fishery. The general purposes of the 

 investigation were to determine (1) what caused 

 the decline of the fishery in waters fished by 

 United States fishermen, (2) what could be done 

 to increase abundance and production, or at least 

 to prevent them from decreasing further, and (3) 

 what predictions of future production were 

 possible. 



During the years 1931-48, a large quantity of 

 data was collected, partly at sea but mostly at 

 the important haddock ports (Boston, Gloucester, 

 and New Bedford, Mass., and Portland, Maine) 

 where collectors and interviewers have worked 

 systematically since 1931. These data, the basis 

 of this and other papers, were obtained with the 

 cooperation of fishermen at sea and of boat owners, 

 dealers, and fish handlers — especially those on 

 the Boston Fish Pier (fig. 1). 



William C. Harrington, in charge of the Haddock 

 Investigation from 1931 to 1947, planned the col- 

 lection of these data obtained in various years 

 during the period 1931-48 by many employees 

 of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Among these 

 were H. M. Bearse, F. E. Firth, D. F. Hammack, 

 J. J. Miggins, J. M. Shuval, and J. R. Webster. 

 Assisting in tabulating and summarizing data at 

 various times during the years 1945-49 were 

 E. L. Arnold, Jr., F. A. Dreyer, Dorothy B. 

 Monahan, Elizabeth V. Nugent, E. S. Phillips, 

 S. L. Cogswell, and L. D. Stringer. 



At sea, data were collected on commercial fishing 

 vessels; on the Atlantis, a research vessel leased 

 from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; 

 and on the fishery-research vessels Albatross II 

 (1931 and 1932) and Albatross III (beginning in 

 1948). Most of these data were collected to deter- 

 mine how to protect small haddock, destroyed in 

 large numbers by the otter-trawl (fig. 2) fleet. 

 Line trawlers (fig. 3) were used in the early days 

 of the haddock fishery, but now only two are oper- 

 ating out of Boston, Mass., the major haddock 

 port. Results of these studies on the small had- 

 dock situation were reported by Herrington (1933, 

 1935, 1936, 1941).' In addition, a small amount of 

 tagging was done to determine migrations and 

 interdependence of populations. Most of this 

 work remains unreported, but one publication refers 

 to phases of it (Rounsefell 1942). And since the 

 commissioning of the Albatross III in 1948, 

 further experiments on mesh sizes, studies of sur- 

 vival of young haddock that escape through larger 

 mesh, some tagging, and a census of the population 

 of all ages of haddock have been undertaken. 



At the important haddock ports considerable 

 quantities of data were obtained. These data arc 

 largely unreported, although contributions of 

 Herrington (1944, 1948) and Schuck (1949) have 

 presented segments of them and certain condu- 



' Publications referred to parenthetically by date are listed in the Litera- 

 ture Cited, p. 176. 



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