28 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
ment, assisted by the Bureau. Public interest aroused by that survey 
led to an appropriation of $6,750 by the Board of Supervisors of Suf- 
folk County, N. Y., for a study in cooperation with the Bureau, of the 
local fishery problems of that county. The investigation, planned to 
continue until June 1940, was under the joint supervision of William 
C. Herrington and Robert A. Nesbit and directed by William C. 
Neville, of the Middle Atlantic staff. He was assisted by Milton J. 
Lobell, of the North Atlantic staff, who continued the flounder studies 
until September 1939, when he was transferred to the U. S. Department 
of the Interior Antarctic Expedition. Alfred Perlmutter, who was ap- 
pointed to the North Atlantic staff in December 1939, resumed the 
flounder investigation. 
The studies undertaken will be of value not only to the county but 
elsewhere in the middle Atlantic region where similar problems 
occur. The main objectives of the study are as follows: 
1. To determine whether any serious decline in the abundance of 
winter flounders is occurring, and what remedial measures are de- 
sirable to maintain a high level of abundance or to insure the best use 
of the local supply. In this study attempts are being made to deter- 
mine the effectiveness of planting hatchery-reared fry in an effort to 
increase or maintain good catches; the desirability of increasing the 
legal size limit from 6 to 10 inches, and whether current fishing 
practices result in any great mortality of illegal or unmarketable 
sizes of fish that are discarded at sea. 
2. To determine whether an increase in the size limit on weakfish 
from 9 to 12 inches would improve the catches of larger-sized fish of 
greater market and recreational value. 
3. To seek practical saving methods to curtail the destruction and 
waste of illegal and undesirable market sizes of fish. 
Favorable progress has been made on all three main objectives. 
In the winter-flounder study, information collected during 1937 and 
1938, supplemented by data in 1939, indicates that different regions of 
Suffolk County have independent population units, so that efforts to 
improve fishing conditions can be applied directly to individual areas. 
Marked differences in the rate of growth of flounders occur in these 
separated regions, thus permitting determination of the probable bene- 
fits to each region through increases in the legal size limit. Frequent 
contacts during the past 2 years with commercial and sport fisher- 
men of Suffolk County have resulted in much personal interest in the 
study, and through individual cooperation accurate catch-record data 
are expected to be available for determining the extent of fluctua- 
tions in amount of catch. 
The question of whether benefits can be derived by increasing the 
size limit of weakfish from 9 to 12 inches can be answered in part on 
the basis of results-of the Bureau’s study of this species since 1928, 
and of the biological survey of Long Island made in cooperation with 
the New York Conservation Department in 1938. Releasing weak- 
fish less than 12 inches in length in New York waters would result 
in at least some of these fish returning to New York waters as larger- 
sized weakfish. It is still uncertain, however, whether the gains would 
fully compensate for the losses. Weakfish are delicate and many 
would not survive sorting by hand. Progress has been made in 
adapting the “sifter” method long used by Rhode Island trap oper- 
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