11-15 



The most common resident fishes of the New Haven shore zone 

 during this study were Atlantic silversides, striped killifish, and 

 mummichogs (Figure 11-2) . Along with juvenile Atlantic menhaden which 

 occurred frequently in the shore zone, these species comprised over 95% 

 of all fishes seined in New Haven from May 1971 through October 1977. 

 One or more of these species were dominant or abundant in all samplings 

 with two exceptions. In May 1977, Atlantic herring formed a large 

 component of the relatively small catch; and in June 1977 a small school 

 of anchovies formed a major portion of another relatively small sam- 

 pling. In general, catches were small from April to June and again in 

 November; peaks of shore-zone fish abundance occurred in July or August. 

 Mummichogs, killifish and silversides were dominant in April and May; 

 mummichogs in June; silversides and killifish, July through November. 

 Atlantic menhaden schools occurred in the shore zone most commonly July- 

 October and most abundantly in September and October. No other species 

 occurred consistently in the shore zone. The resulting picture of New 

 Haven's shore-zone fish assemblage is substantially different from that 

 described by Warfel and Merriman (1944) who, using different methods and 

 confining their efforts to Morris Cove, found some common species to be 

 abundant which were infrequently caught in our samples. For example, we 

 observed relatively few pipefish, winter flounder, puffers or tomcod. 

 Many of these differences may be largely attributable to the demise of 

 eelgrass beds in Morris Cove during the interval between 1944 and our 

 studies. Our results do, however, agree more with other studies using 

 similar gear throughout the Atlantic coast (see previous citations) . 



Demersal Fishes 



Numerous studies of demersal fish assemblages [Richards, 1963; 

 Pearcy and Richards, 1962; and NUSCO, 1977] have been conducted in Long 

 Island Sound. Others have studied particular demersal species (Pearcy, 

 1962; Moore, 1947) . Three classes of demersal fish can be defined for 

 New Haven Harbor: harbor residents. Long Island Sound residents which 

 utilize the harbor under favorable conditions in spring and fall, and 

 summer migrants. Two resident species, winter flounder and windowpane. 



