Living Silver 



minimum mesh size for the cod-end of a North Sea trawl was sud- 

 denly fixed at 7_f centimetres and that it made very little differ- 

 ence to the ship on which he was sailing since it was already using 

 a mesh larger than the regulation demanded. And, on the whole, 

 there was little direct change in the British trawling fleet's equip- 

 ment. But that was because they were after haddock. The regu- 

 lation was directed against the Belgian, French and Danish crews 

 who were fishing for whiting. 



Four hours in Britain, and one meal, had been enough to intro- 

 duce Jan to the haddock. Ever since then he had grown more and 

 more aware of its unsavoury importance in the diet of his adopted 

 country. And indeed it was important. Only the cod and the her- 

 ring could compete with it for a place on the English table : and it 

 was more highly prized than either. It was, then, one of the fish 

 that sold ; and the trawlermen therefore searched for it. So much 

 so, that, along with the plaice, it made up the better part of their 

 near-and middle-water earnings. 



Now, the haddock had a big and bony head. Even a small had- 

 dock had a big head, a head that could not be forced through a 

 small-meshed net, even a haddock that was too small and too young 

 for it to have had a chance to spawn and, thus, reproduce itself. 

 If, therefore, the North Sea were to be fished by a numerous fleet 

 of trawlers, each dragging a net with a 60 millimetre cod-end, 

 then a lot of haddock would be taken out of it before they had 

 grown old enough to spawn. If enough haddock were thus pre- 

 vented from perpetuating themselves then there would obviously 

 be a rapid decline in the total numbers of the species in the North 

 Sea. And that was what happened in the early fifties. The situ- 

 ation demanded some kind of control, if the haddock population 

 was not to become almost extinct, completely useless as a com- 

 mercial fishery ; and the British Government therefore suggested 

 that a minimum mesh-size should be imposed, a mesh-size large 

 enough to allow these immature fish to escape. 



But few other nations were interested in catching haddock. 

 The French and the Belgians, in particular, preferred the more 



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