12 American Fisheries Society 



supply provided that spawning be uninterrupted. Hux- 

 ley* said in regard to the herring fishery, that "The best 

 thing for governments to do in relation to the herring 

 fisheries is to let them alone, except in so far as the police 

 of the sea is concerned. With this proviso, let people 

 fish how they like, and when they like. There is not a 

 particle of evidence that anything man does has any 

 appreciable influence on the stock of herrings." This 

 is unquestionably true as regards the herring or any 

 other pelagic fish, for the human race is merely one more 

 enemy and one whose depredations are trivial compared 

 with those already existing in nature, but it is not true 

 in regard to the shad. As they are only taken when on 

 the way to the spawning grounds, the destruction of each 

 one — and especially each female — involves the loss of a 

 large number of possible offspring, and unfortunately 

 it is the females that are mainly sought. Shad roe is a 

 delicacy that commands a high price, and, as stated 

 above, nets that will allow the males to pass will retain 

 the females. As a result the bucks outnumber the roe 

 shad tremendously and in a ratio that is steadily increas- 

 ing. On the Pacific side last year, the ratio was about 

 twenty bucks to one female, and this year the ratio was 

 about thirty to one. In California and in New York ef- 

 forts at artificial culture were almost total failures be- 

 cause of the inability to procure eggs, and this in turn 

 was due to the scarcity of the roe fish. The increasing 

 scarcity of the fish is stimulating the brain of man to de- 

 vise more efficient means of taking them and thus quick- 

 ening the extermination of the species. In the Chesa- 

 peake Bay, the nets extend out, in some cases, to a dis- 

 tance of twelve miles from shore, and the only chance 

 that the fish have to get to their spawning grounds is to 

 keep within the ship channels which are kept clear by 

 the federal authorities. As was well put by the United 

 States Commissioner of Fisheries, a knowledge of the 

 federal navigation laws will soon be essential for the self 

 preservation of the shad. 



*T. H. Huxley. Popular Science Monthly for August, 1881. 



