of Cobscook Bay and the shores and waters 

 to West Quoddy Head. 



MATERIAL AND METHODS 



The herring statistics presented here have 

 been collected under a system that began in 

 1947 (Scattergood, 1949), At that time the 

 Maine Sardine Packers Association, Maine 

 Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries, and 

 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a 

 cooperative sardine herring investigation, 

 under the direction of the Federal agency. 

 Dally records of herring landed at sardine 

 canneries are obtained by the fish Inspectors 

 of the Maine Department of Agriculture. Each 

 landing record has the fisherman's name, 

 quantity of sardine caught, date and locality 

 of capture, gear used, and the cannery's 

 name. The data are put on Keysort cards that 

 are forwarded to the Maine Department of 

 Sea and Shore Fisheries' office where the 

 information is used by statistical agents in 

 the preparation of the monthly Maine fish 

 landings reports. The cards are then given 

 to the scientific personnel of the Federal 

 biological laboratory in Boothbay Harbor. 

 Federal and State statistical agents collect 

 similar data from fish meal plants, pearl 

 essence producers, herring smokers, herring 

 picklers, and cat food canners. 



HISTORY OF FISHERY 



It is probable that herring fisheries existed 

 in the Passamaquoddy Region prior to the 

 first visits of European fishermen four and a 

 half centuries ago. Indians utilized weirs to 

 capture fish, and herring are readily taken 

 in such gear. Historical information on both 

 the aboriginal and early colonial herring 

 fisheries Is quite limited; however, herring 

 were undoubtedly important as a food supply 

 and source of groundflsh bait (Scattergood 

 and Tibbo, 1959). 



The Passamaquoddy Region is now important 

 as a sardine-producing area. Prior to the 

 development of the sardine (immature herring) 

 Industry in the 1870'8, the fishery was pre- 

 dominantly for large herring (Earll, 1887; 



Huntsman, 1953), which were used for salt- 

 ing, pickling, smoking, and bait. Now the 

 fishery for large herring Is of minor im- 

 portance principally because the supply of 

 mature fish in the region seems to have 

 diminished during the last few years. 



QUANTITIES LANDED 



The most complete data collected on the 

 herring fishery are those of the period 1947- 

 58, Statistics of the Maine herring catch 

 were not collected regularly prior to 1947. 

 Furthermore, the pre-1947 statistics are not 

 in detail that allows a separation of the 

 catches into the Passamaquoddy high and low 

 pool areas. Consequently, the pre-1947 statis- 

 tics are not shown here. 



During the 12-year period 1947-58, the 

 Maine herring catch ranged from 75 million 

 to 200 million pounds and averaged 148 mil- 

 lion pounds (table 1, fig, 2). The value varied 

 from $1,154,000 to $3,219,000, with an aver- 

 age of $2,109,000, 



Table 1.— Maine herring landings 1947-58,» 



1 From data collated by Bureau of Commer- 

 cial Fisheries Biological Laboratory at Booth- 

 bay Harbor, Maine, There are slight differences 

 between these figures and those published pre- 

 viously in the Fish and Wildlife Service's 

 Statistical Digests, 



