Tilefish 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



The interesting history of the tilefish, Lopholatilus 

 chamaeleonticeps Goode and Bean, fishery has been de- 

 scribed in detail by Bigelow and Schroeder (1953), and 

 was reviewed briefly by McHugh (1972a). The species 

 apparently is distributed in a narrow band of relatively 

 warm bottom water at the edge of the continental shelf. 

 It is taken incidentally by trawlers fishing primarily for 

 other species, but recently in New Jersey a specialized 

 longline fishery has developed; this accounts for the 

 sharp increase in landings (Fig. 42, Table 48) in the last 3 

 yr. No parallel increase occurred in New York landings, 

 but north of New York landings have increased about as 

 sharply as in New Jersey. In both states limited deep 

 water handline sport fisheries have developed recently. 



The only foreign catch of tilefish reported by ICNAF 

 was 1 metric ton in 1972. It is likely that incidental 

 catches are made fairly regularly by foreign fleets fishing 

 at the edge of the continental shelf. 



Figure 42.— Annual commercial landings of tilefish in New Jersey 

 1933-1975. 



Table 48 .--Estimated cormercial landings of tilefish in the north 

 and middle Atlantic regions of the United States coast 1960-1975, 

 Heights in metric tons. 



A specialized recreational fishery for tilefish in deep water 

 has developed recently. 



Probably some incidental foreign catches are taken on the outer 

 continental shelf. One metric ton was reported in 1972 in subarea 6. 



Figures for 1975 in parentheses assume that unavailable landings 

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



Study of trends in landings of some 48 species of fishes 

 and shellfishes in New Jersey has shown that the history 

 of the marine fisheries of the State closely parallels the 

 history of the marine fisheries of New York. Maximum 

 total weight of landings in New Jersey was reached in 

 1956, followed by a secondary peak in 1962, and a sub- 

 sequent sharp decline to a low in 1969 at only about 16% 

 of the 1956 high. 



Over most of the recorded history of New Jersey 

 fisheries, menhaden has dominated the catch, especially 

 after the 1930s. The recent rise in landings after 1969 has 

 been caused primarily by a resurgence of the menhaden 

 fishery. When food finfishes and food shellfishes are con- 

 sidered separately the patterns are different. The 

 greatest recorded weight of landings of food finfishes was 

 in 1901, but the statistics prior to 1929 were for the most 

 part widely spaced in time and probably were less 

 reliable. The next greatest was 1945, the peak year of a 

 period (1929-49) which marked the most prosperous era 

 of the otter trawl fisheries of New Jersey. Subsequently, 

 landings of food finfishes declined rather steadily to an 

 all-time low in 1968 which was about 30% of the 1945 

 high. 



Landings of food shellfishes showed a downward trend 

 from 1880 to 1944, then rose sharply to a maximum his- 

 toric high in 1966, and fell off abruptly thereafter. The re- 

 cent rise is somewhat misleading, for it was caused by 

 development after the second world war of the surf clam 

 fishery. If surf clam catches were not included in food 

 shellfish landings, the downward trend continues, as it 

 has in New York. 



The postwar decline in food finfish landings in New 

 Jersey, which was similar to the decline in New York, is 

 significant in the light of the popular belief that foreign 

 fishing is the cause of all the problems of the domestic 

 marine fisheries. Foreign fishing did not extend south- 

 ward of Cape Cod and Georges Bank until the mid-1960s, 

 when the decline of domestic landings was already well 

 underway. This suggests that other factors had impor- 

 tant effects on total landings. Foreign fishing certainly 

 has reduced recently the abundance of a number of living 

 resources important to domestic fishermen in New York 

 Bight, and thus created problems for domestic fisher- 

 men. But it is a dangerous oversimplification to believe 

 that all the problems of the domestic fisheries will be 

 solved by extending national jurisdiction to 200 miles. 

 Resolution of foreign fishing problems off the U.S. coast 

 will bring realization that even more difficult unsolved 

 problems remain. Preoccupation with "the Russians" 

 has led many people to forget that extremely complex 

 domestic fishery problems of long standing exist, and 

 that the United States has made little progress in solving 

 them. As Gates and Norton (1974) have observed, foreign 

 fishing is a symptom of what is wrong with the domestic 

 fishing industry, not a cause. Smith (1975), with 

 reference to a west coast trawl fishery, noted that the 

 well-being of domestic fishermen did not change sig- 

 nificantly as foreign fishing developed in their area, yet 



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