recent recovery of crab stocks with the decline and recent 

 recovery of eelgrass beds. 



Blue crab is an estuarine and coastal species, not 

 caught far from shore north of Cape Hatteras. It is not 

 reported in foreign catches and is not likely to be taken 

 by foreign fleets in the Middle Atlantic Bight. 



It is interesting to speculate on the reasons for the re- 

 cent increase in abundance of blue crab in the New York 

 Bight area. It has increased in abundance in coastal bays 

 of New York State in the last few years, and in 1974 a 

 small commercial catch was reported for the first year 

 since 1961. Commercial catches were made in 1975 also, 

 although none was recorded in official statistics. In Great 

 South Bay, for example, clam rakers at times took sub- 

 stantial incidental blue crab catches, as much as 10-12 

 bushels per day (John MacNamara pars, commun.). Blue 

 crab is notoriously variable in abundance in Chesapeake 

 Bay, which produces most of the Atlantic coast catch, 

 and it would be expected to be even more variable at the 

 northern end of its geographic range. In Chesapeake Bay, 

 despite wide variations in abundance from time to time, 

 the trend of landings has been upward since 1890 (Mc- 

 Hugh 1969b). It has been suggested that this has been 

 the result of a real increase in abundance which might 

 have been caused by increased nutrient supply in the es- 

 tuaries. In the Middle Atlantic region, commercial land- 

 ings showed a similar upward trend from 1931 to the 

 1950s, with much wider fluctuations, presumably of 

 natural origin, but this was followed by a sharp and fairly 

 steady decline from 1957 to a very low level in 1970 (Mc- 

 Hugh 1972a). It was suggested that if the early rise were 

 indeed stimulated by nutrient enrichment, the sharp 

 decline in the late 1950s and the 1960s in this more dense- 

 ly populated section of the coast could contain a warning. 

 Under no circumstances could a continued increase in 

 nutrients be expected to present favorable conditions to 

 the blue crab resource indefinitely, and the danger is 

 heightened by the growing loads of industrial wastes, in- 

 cluding heavy metals and pesticides, that go along with 

 increased population. Crabs, being much more closely 

 related morphologically and physiologically to insects 

 than fishes are, can be expected to respond more readily 

 to certain insecticides (Butler 1966). The unanswered 

 question then arises: Is the recent sharp increase in 

 abundance of blue crab in the New York Bight area a 

 transitory phenomenon, or has the ban on DDT and 

 other organophosphates had some effect? 



Atlantic Bonito 



In New Jersey and New York Atlantic bonito, Sarda 

 sarda (Bloch), has been taken almost entirely by pound 

 nets. In common with other highly mobile pelagic fishes 

 of the high seas it is caught erratically in fixed coastal 

 gears (Fig. 26). The sharp decline in landings after the 

 second world war probably was related mainly to the 

 decline of the ocean pound net fishery. Landings in New 

 York have shown generally the same pattern of fluc- 

 tuations but the catch usually has been less than in New 

 Jersey. 



-A-J\. 



1880 90 1900 



Figure 26.— Annual commercial landings of Atlantic bonito in New 

 York and New Jersey 1880-1975. 



Recreational catches of bonito usually have been larger 

 than commercial catches, sometimes by an order of mag- 

 nitude, but sport catches also have been highly variable 

 (Table 28). 



Table 28 .--E<stijnated commercial and recreational catches of 

 Atlantic bonito in the north and middle Atlemtic regions of 

 the United States coast 1960-1975. Weights in metric tons. 



The national saltwater angling surveys for 1960, 1965, and 

 1970 did not give data by individual states. New York was 

 included with the New England states and New Jersey with 

 the other middle Atlantic states. 



Figures for 1975 in parentheses assume that unavailable landings 

 in N.H., Conn., and Del. equal the average of recent years. 



- An unreported catch is possible. 



• Less than 0.5 metric ton. 



The species has not been reported separately in foreign 

 catches in the Middle Atlantic Bight, and it can be con- 

 cluded that it is not an important species in those 

 fisheries. In the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, 

 the average annual catch of bonito in the period 1963 to 

 1972 inclusive has been about 10,260 metric tons 

 (Miyake et al. 1973). 



Spanish Mackerel 



Scomberomorus maculatus (Mitchill), Spanish mack- 

 erel, is primarily a southern fish. In the 1880s (Mather 

 1887) it was taken in the ocean off the eastern end and 



29 



