THE SHAD FISHERIES OF THE ATLANTIC COAST OF THE 

 UNITED STATES. 



By Charles H. Stkvenson. 



INTRODUCTION. 



AccordiDg to the returns of the United States Fish Commission there 

 were 24,768 men employed in the shad fisheries of the Atlantic coast of 

 the United States in 1896; the boats, apparatus, etc., employed were 

 worth $2,040,342, and the yield of shad numbered 13,053,429, valued 

 at $1,651,443. These figures include only the common shad {Alosa sap- 

 idissima), and not the several related species known as hickory shad 

 winter shad, mud shad, jack, etc. 



The capture of shad is occasionally reported from certain of the trib- 

 utaries of the Gulf of Mexico, but it does not exist iu those w^aters in 

 sufficient abundance to maintain important fisheries. The several 

 plantings made from time to time have resulted in colonizing shad iu 

 nearly all the rivers of the Pacific slope from San Pedro to Puget 

 Sound, and the annual yield on that coast approximates 200,000. In 

 addition to the United States coast, the species is also caught on the 

 eastern coast of the British North American provinces as far north as 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the yield approximating 600,000 annually. 



There is no species of fish more important to the residents of the 

 entire Atlantic seaboard than the shad, and none whose preservation 

 so immediately concerns a larger number of persons. The yield of 

 codfish is larger and of greater value, but the fishery for that species 

 is confined to one section of the coast, gives employment to less than 

 half as many men, and its prosecution requires costly vessels and appli- 

 ances, necessitating lengthy trips from port and much exposure and 

 loss; whereas shad occur more or less abundantly along the entire 

 coast, ascending the rivers as far as they permit, almost to tlie very 

 doors of fishermen and consumers several hundred miles from the sea, 

 and are caught by all forms of aj^paratus, from the costly seines and 

 pound nets near the coast to the roughly constructed bow nets and fall 

 traps in the headwaters of the rivers. 



However, there are few fishes whose geographical range and local 

 abundance are more easily affected by agencies of man, and during 

 the last fifty years the shad fisheries have undergone great changes. 

 In the early part of the present century these fish ascended the numer- 

 ous streams until they reached the headwaters or met with impassable 

 falls, and they were caught all along the river course, every point yield- 



103 



