Commercial Fishery — Illinois River 



Historical Perspective . In 1899, 600 rail carloads of fish were 

 shipped from the Illinois River to New York City (Bartlett, 1900). Each 

 car held from 8,000 to 20,000 pounds of fish. Twenty- two railcars were 

 shipped from Beardstown alone (Townsend, 1902). By 1908, the value of 

 the catch of freshwater fish from the Illinois River exceeded that 

 of any other river in America (excluding rivers with anadromous fishes). 

 The Illinois River catch was 10% of total freshwater fish production 

 in the United States. Over 2,000 commercial fishermen found employment 

 on the river in 1908 (Department of Commerce and Labor, 1911: 24, 34- 

 41, 115). 



In 1976, only 2 full-time commercial fishermen worked on the Illi- 

 nois River, and the 1973 harvest was only 0.32% of the total U.S. har- 

 vest of freshwater fish (Department of Commerce, 1976). There were 

 several factors responsible for the decline of the commercial fishery. 

 Economic factors were important, as mentioned in the section on com- 

 mercial fisheries in the Mississippi River. For example, at the turn 

 of the century, there were many European immigrants to the United States 

 who preferred carp as a food. The descendants of these immigrants pre- 

 fer other types of food, so the demand for carp has declined (Sullivan, 

 1971: 65-79). The development of refrigeration techniques permitted 

 inland marketing of saltwater fish, which probably began to compete 

 with locally-caught freshwater fish. 



However, if economic factors alone were responsible for declines 

 in the freshwater commercial fishery, then similar declines should 

 have occurred in all Midwestern rivers. Table 9 shows that the 

 harvest of fish from the Mississippi River has remained relatively con- 

 stant since 1950, whereas the harvest from the Illinois River has de- 

 clined drastically during the same period. During the same period the 

 number of full-time commercial fishermen on the Mississippi River bor- 

 dering Illinois declined by 73%, compared to a 98% decline on the 

 Illinois River. Table 10 shows that with the exception of carp, the wholesale 

 price for fish (in 1977 dollars) has been rather constant or has actually 

 increased from the turn of the century. 



Commercial fishermen and market operators along the Illinois River 

 56 



