Table 10. --Average annual commercial landings of major food fishes 

 in New Jersey for five major periods in the history of the commercial 

 food finfisheries of the State, weights in metric tons. 



individual flounder catches do not agree with total flounder catch 

 in the period 1929-1949 because flounders were not recorded by 

 species prior to 1937. In the period 1971-1975 some unclassified 

 flounder catches are included in the total flounder catch. 



* Less than 0.5 metric ton. 



that commercial landings as an index of total catch exag- 

 gerate declines. Growth of saltwater sport fishing also 

 has introduced difficult sociopolitical complications. 



Some of the changes in abundance or availability of 

 food fishes as indicated by trends in commercial landings 

 can be explained with some confidence, but much of the 

 interpretation is speculative at best. Scientists generally 

 are much more aware of the complications and uncer- 

 tainties than laymen are, and less likely to be sure about 

 the causes of variations in the catch. When they are 

 reasonably certain, scientists are likely to view the situa- 

 tion differently than laymen do, and when scientists are 

 uncertain, they are less likely to take sides or to make 

 simplified assertions. This tends to exacerbate, rather 

 than alleviate, objective appraisal of the situation and 

 rational interpretation and solution of problems. One 

 way of putting it is to say that, for the most part, in fish- 

 ery management the democratic process leads to identifi- 



cation of the wrong problems and the wrong solutions 

 (McHugh 1972b). 



Recreational fisheries in marine coastal waters of the 

 United States have clearly increased in importance, es- 

 pecially as growing prosperity and leisure time have 

 provided opportunities for recreation. However, sport 

 fishing was a popular pastime in certain areas in the 

 1880s also (Earll 1887; Mather 1887). On the New Jersey 

 coast Barnegat Bay and Atlantic City were favorite sport 

 fishing centers, and it was reported that recreational 

 fishermen gave so much of their catch to local residents 

 that markets for commercial catches were poor. Sport 

 fishing was also popular at many points on Long Island. 

 Mather (1887) in fact included recreational and subsis- 

 tence catches in his estimates of the New York catch, 

 which means that his figures are not comparable with 

 later statistics. 



Recreational fishing without a doubt has competed 

 significantly with commercial fishing for the available 

 stocks of some species in coastal waters. Declines in com- 

 mercial catches of some resources may have been balanc- 

 ed by increased catches by recreational fishermen. Ex- 

 istence of substantial sport fisheries for some species 

 greatly complicates the problem of obtaining adequate 

 information for management, and for establishing effec- 

 tive management measures if a scientific basis for 

 management is available. Gathering reasonably ac- 

 curate statistics on recreational catch and effort, and en- 

 forcement of regulations on saltwater sport fishing, will 

 be extremely difficult and costly. But, even in the ab- 

 sence of sport fishing, e.g., as in the Pacific sardine and 

 Atlantic menhaden fisheries, it has not been possible to 

 prevent overfishing. Moreover, in many domestic marine 

 commercial fisheries it is questionable whether 

 reasonably accurate statistics have been gathered, or 

 ever will be possible, under our permissive democratic 

 system of government. 



Because it illustrates rather nicely the evolution of 

 coastal fisheries and the inability of government to 

 manage harvesting of common-property or open-access 

 fishery resources, the ensuing discussion by species has 

 been arranged chronologically in terms of the decade in 

 which New Jersey landings of each resource reached a 

 maximum. Within each decade the resources are ar- 

 ranged in descending order of importance by maximum 

 weight landed. The order of discussion follows the order 

 of arrangement of species in Table 11, but the table also 

 includes all species or groups of species that have been 

 reported at any time as landed in New Jersey. Only 

 about one-third of these species have been selected for 

 discussion. For comparison, a similar table by decades is 

 given for New York (Table 12). 



American Oyster 



Historically. American oyster, Crassostrea virginica 

 (Gmelin), has been one of the most important fishery 

 resources of the Middle Atlantic Bight, whether its im- 

 portance is reckoned by weight or by value. Value ex- 

 pressed in dollars is not a good criterion because the real 



14 



