by Gulf States for the years 1949-58, 

 inclusive. The Florida catch was neg- 

 ligible, being slightly more than 1 

 percent of the total. No menhaden 

 landings were reported from Alabama. 

 The major part of the catch, over 60 

 percent, was landed in Louisiana. How- 

 ever, table Z does not fully show the 

 preponderance of Louisiana waters in 

 menhaden production. Statistics are 

 not available on catch localities, but 

 Texas boats have little Texas water 

 in which to fish (Baker, 1955) and the 

 Mississippi coast line is less than 70 

 miles long. 



In 1950 the Gulf catch was 32.6 

 percent of the United States total (table 

 3). In 1955, although the Gulf catch 

 had increased to over 480 million 

 pounds, the Gulf percentage of the 

 United States total catch declined to 

 25.8. Gulf fishermen took 26.7 percent 

 of the record catch of 1956, when over 

 2 billion pounds were reported for the 

 United States total landings. Total 

 landings dropped sharply in 1957. 

 Power (1959) listed several reasons 

 for the 1957 decrease. Although the 

 number of purse seines (table 4) con- 

 tinued to increase in the Gulf, the 1957 

 Gulf catch was down to 21.5 percent of 

 total landings. 



Little information on catch per 

 unit effort is available in the Gulf 

 menhaden fishery and the period of 

 time during which the fishery has 

 operated at a high level is only 10 

 years. While the number of yards of 

 seine (table 4) for the Gulf coast men- 



haden fishery more than doubled from 

 1948 to 1958, the catch per yard in- 

 creased from 13.9 thousand pounds to 

 19.8 thousand pounds in 1956. The 

 catch per yard of seine dropped to 1 1 .6 

 thousand pounds in 1957 and canne 

 back to 13.9 thousand pounds in 1958. 



MENHADEN BIOLOGY 



TAXONOMY, DISTRIBUTION 

 AND RELATIONSHIPS 



Menhaden belong to a genus of 

 clupeid fishes inhabiting the shore 

 regions of the Atlantic from Nova 

 Scotia to Argentina and, according to 

 de Buen (1958), Pacific waters off 

 Chile and Peru. Unverified records 

 place the genus off the west coast of 

 Africa. 



The genus Brevoortia was es- 

 tablished by Gill (1861). Brevoortia 

 tyrannus (Latrobe) was designated the 

 genotype. The genus was revised by 

 Goode (1878) and by Hildebrand (1948). 

 According to Hildebrand (1948) there 

 were seven species, five in North 

 America and two in South America. 

 Hildebrand had no North American 

 records south of Indian River, the 

 coastal lagoon of east Florida, and 

 none south of Tannpa on the west Flor- 

 ida coast. The mouth of the Rio Grande 

 River was the southern limit in the 

 western Gulf. Hildebrand was quite 

 firm in asserting, as a result of his 

 sojourn in Dry Tortugas, thit there 

 were no menhaden in southern Florida. 



Table 3. — Total landings of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico menhaden, 1950-57 



[In thousands of pounds] 



Year 



Atlantic 



Gulf 



Totals 



1950 61^,^6S 



1951 7-45,950 



1952 923,606 



1953 1,259,031 



1954 1,336, 524 



1955 1,386,791 



1956 1,537,403 



1957 1,327,595 



326,030 

 357,965 

 459,984 

 437,045 

 401,243 

 480,992 

 559,836 

 362,533 



1,000,498 

 1,103,915 

 1,383,590 

 1,696,076 

 1,737,767 

 1,867,783 

 2,097,239 

 1,690,128 



