FOOD SHELLFISH 



■v _.-A- 



FOOD FINFISH 



Figure 5. —Annual commercial landings of fishes and shellfishes used 

 as human food in New Jersey 1880-1975. The isolated points in the up- 

 per panel represent shellfish landings minus surf clam meats, to il- 

 lustrate the point that if it had not been for development of the surf 

 clam fishery shellfish landings would have shown a downward trend 

 also. 



ment of the surf clam industry {Spisula solidissima). The 

 history of the shellfisheries in New Jersey is typical of the 

 development of coastal fisheries everywhere, charac- 

 terized by an early concentration on resources close to 

 shore, followed by an extension of the fishery to ad- 

 ditional species and to more distant waters. 



The history of the finfisheries shows different trends: 

 an apparent rise to peak production in the last two 

 decades of the 19th century; apparently a drop of about 

 25^^ from 1904 to 1926, although records are not available 

 for most years in this early period; a period of relatively 

 high total landings from 1929 to 1949, as shorebound 

 fisheries like the pound net fishery were superseded by 

 the mobile and more efficient trawl fishery (Perlmutter 

 1959; Knapp in press); followed by a steady drop as the 

 stocks of many species began to decline. The numbers of 

 species in the catch also reflect these changes. In the first 

 period 52 species or species groups' were listed, in the se- 

 cond period 60, third period 80, and fourth period 67. 



If the surf clam catch is omitted, the history of total 

 food fish and food shellfish landings in New Jersey is 

 similar to the history of food fishery landings in New 

 York. Catches increased until early in the 20th century, 

 dropped during the first 25 yr of the 20th century, rose 

 again, and remained relatively high in the period 1930- 

 50, and then began a steady decline which apparently is 

 still in progress. In New Jersey, as already mentioned 



•^Some species were grouped in official statistics, e.g., drums, searobins, 

 and some other categories like flounders, eels, and hakes were grouped in 

 early statistics but separated later. For consistency it has been assumed 

 that all species later listed separately were represented in early catches. 



and as illustrated in Figure 5, the postwar decline in total 

 food fish and shellfish production is masked by the rapid- 

 ly increasing catch of surf clam, produced by a new in- 

 dustry which began off the coast of Long Island after the 

 second world war and soon shifted to the much more 

 abundant surf clam resource off New Jersey. Except for 

 the sea scallop industry, which is now much less produc- 

 tive than it was 15 yr ago, this is the only important off- 

 shore fishery for molluscan shellfish. 



If total landings of food finfishes and food shellfishes in 

 New York are separated (McHugh 1974), the similarity 

 of trends in landings in the two states is even more ap- 

 parent (Fig. 5). Postwar development of the surf clam in- 

 dustry did not distort the trend of shellfish landings so 

 much in New York State because the resource is ap- 

 parently much less abundant off Long Island than it is 

 off the New Jersey coast. Shellfish landings other than 

 surf clam, represented by the unconnected points in the 

 1950s to 1970s in Figure 5, have declined irregularly but 

 steadily since the 19th century in both states. 



Food finfish landings in both states fall into four or five 

 fairly distinct periods. Trends in New Jersey landings 

 (Fig. 5) are not dissimilar to those in New York (McHugh 

 1974). The first two decades were characterized by rising 

 catches, probably because the demand for fish was rising 

 as the population grew, and fishing intensity increased in 

 response. The causes of the decline in the second period 

 probably were complex, partly economic and partly 

 biological, a combination of maximum availability and 

 fluctuation in abundance offish stocks and perhaps some 

 local overfishing. The third period, extending from 1929 

 to about 1950, was a period of relative prosperity for the 

 food fisheries generally in both states, which began with 

 the development of the trawl fisheries (Pearson 1932), 

 and was extended by the special circumstances of the sec- 

 ond world war. 



The coastal trawl fisheries, which began in the late 

 1920s, made available a much larger resource than could 

 be exploited by shorebound fisheries like the pound net 

 and haul seine industries. Domestic trawlers were able to 

 follow migratory resources from Cape Hatteras, N.C. to 

 Cape Cod, Mass. in all seasons. The growth of this 

 fishery was one important cause, although not the only 

 cause, of the decline of pound net fisheries along the 

 coast (Knapp in press). The fourth period in the history 

 of the food finfisheries covers the last two decades up to 

 the present. The causes of the downward trend were com- 

 plex, including lower prices for fish and rising costs of 

 fishing in the postwar era, and declining abundance and 

 probably overfishing of some species, although Reintjes 

 and Roithmayr (1960) believed that, with the possible 

 exception of black sea bass, most species in the Middle 

 Atlantic Bight area were underutilized. In the last 10 yr, 

 additional complications have been added by the growth 

 of foreign fisheries off the northeastern coast of the 

 United States. This development has completed a chain 

 of events characteristic of the evolution of all fisheries. 

 For reasons of efficiency and economics, the domestic 

 trawl fisheries partially broke the bonds that tied the ear- 

 ly fisheries so firmly to the shore (Knapp in press). But 



