FIRST YEAR OF MESH REGULATION IN THE 

 GEORGES BANK HADDOCK FISHERY 



Destruction of undersized haddock on Georges Bank over the past years 

 has been described by Alexander, Moore, and Kendall (1915), Harrington (1932, 

 1935, 1936), Schuck (X9la7, l9hQ) , and Royce and Schuck (19^0) . 



The waste of small unmarketable sizes, which amounted to as many as 70 

 million fish in a sint;le year, has been decried ever since the otter trawl 

 was introduced in New England in 1905. This waste could have been prevented 

 by the use of larger meshes in the nets, which would have allowed the 

 unwanted fish to escape, but there v/as no control of this offshore fishery 

 ixntil the organization of the International Commission for the Northwest 

 Atlantic Fisheries. Under this Commission, an international mesh regulation 

 for haddock fishing was brought into effect for Georges Bank and the Gulf of 

 Maine (Subarea 5 of the Commission) on June 1, 1953 « 



The biological basis for the mesh regulation was presented by Graham 

 (1952), From gro\^rth rates and mortality rates of the Georges Bank stock it 

 was calculated that the fishery would be most productive, with the present 

 size of fleet, if the haddock were not taken until they were 3 years old. 

 Since haddock of this age are of marketable size, the initial effects of an 

 advance to this age of first capture might be severe, and consequently it 

 was decided to recommend increasing the mesh size in two steps. The first 

 step, advancing the age of first capture to 2-1/2 years, was designed to pre- 

 vent capture of most of the fish noramlly caught and discarded, while per- 

 mitting the escape of a very small percentage of the smallest marketable 

 sizes. This step called for use of nets of U-l/2 inch mesh, inside stretched 

 measurement. 



The ultimate effect of this first step was expected to be an increase 

 in the production of the fishery by about 30 percent, provided the fishing 

 effort remained constant. The initial effect was expected to be a slight 

 decline in landings, due to the loss of a few of the smaller fish of market- 

 able size, but this initial effect was expected to be offset to some extent 

 by increased efficiency of the nets with larger mesh. 



The United States recommendation to the Commission was based on many 

 years of research on the Georges Bank haddock, and consequently there was 

 considerable confidence in the estimates of the long-term benefits of con- 

 serving the small fish. It was deemed advisable, however, to set up a 

 special program of study to determine what the effect of the regulation 

 ^TOuld be. The Commission desired to subject the regulation to the most 

 rigorous testing that could be devised. 



As part of this testing program, observers were sent to sea on com- 

 mercial trawlers to sample the fish that were discarded as well as the 



