ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



THE TUNA ON THE ATLANTIC COAST. 

 By Raymond C. Osburn, Ph. D. 



IN the Bulletin for November, 1910, notice 

 was made of the occurrence of the tuna or 

 tunny in considerable numbers off the New 

 Jersey coast. Many of these fish were taken 

 that summer off Barnegat and Asbury Park, and 

 reports of their occurrence have reached the 

 Aquarium every summer since then. 



To be sure, the tuna is an old resident on all 

 the Atlantic coast, but he has been masquerading 

 under such pseudon3ans as Herring-hog, Horse- 

 mackerel and the like, which are both uncom- 

 plimentary and misleading^^, since the_y are also 

 applied to less aristocratic animals. The Cape 

 Cod, Gloucester and Nova Scotia fishermen, 

 from time immemorial, have been harpooning 

 the big fellows occasionally when they had 

 nothing else to do, or wanted a little practice 

 with the "iron," or when there was nothing else 

 in sight to eat. Misunderstood and unappreci- 

 ated from every point of view, the greatest of 

 all the modern bony fishes has serenely pur- 

 sued his wonted course in the wake of the her- 

 ring and menhaden shoals along our coasts, when 

 he would have been perfectly justified in giving 

 a contemptuous flip of his tail and heading for 

 the Mediterranean. There he would receive a 

 warm welcome from the whole race of Italian 

 fishermen. There he would at least be eaten ! 



But the tuna's day is coming when he may 

 reap the reward of his patient waiting. Thanks 

 to the late Dr. Chas. F. Holder and his justly 

 famous Tuna Club of Santa Catalina it be- 

 came known a dozen years or so ago to the 

 world at large that the tuna furnishes the great- 

 est possible test of the angler's skill and endur- 

 ance. As a result anglers from all the Atlantic 

 States flocked to the California coast, all anx- 

 ious for a try at the big fish in the hope that 

 they might be able to land a hundred-pounder 

 with the approved tackle and so have their 

 names entered on the rolls of the Tuna Club. 



All this time the tuna was ranging our own 

 coast in large numbers, too proud to court at- 

 tention, too conservative to advertise. However, 

 the anglers have somehow awakened to the fact, 

 long known to the ichthyologists, that the same 

 species of tuna (Thunnus thynnus, Linn.), is 

 found in all the great seas of moderate tempera- 

 ture and that his habits in the Atlantic do not 

 differ from his behavior in Pacific waters. Ev- 

 erywhere he is the great tuna, the "leaping" 

 tuna, surpassed in actual bulk among the bony 

 fishes only by the ocean sun-fish or Mola, rival- 

 ing in speed and endurance any fish that swims, 

 always hungry and ready to oblige an angler. 



The waters about Nova Scotia have furnished 

 the finest kind of sport for several years past, 

 and the world's record for the capture of a tuna 

 with rod and reel was made there at Port i\Ied- 

 way on September 5, 1911. According to For- 

 est and Stream (November, 191't, pp., .596-7), 

 a tuna weighing 710 pounds, after the loss of 

 mucli blood and measuring ten feet four inches 

 in length and seven feet in girth, was taken by 

 Mr. Laurie I). Mitchell, after a fight lasting 

 eight and a quarter hours. The line used was 

 2.50 yards of single 39 line, attached to which 

 was a double strand of seventy-five yards of No. 

 3() line and piano wire leader fifteen feet in 

 length. This is so far ahead of all former rec- 

 ords that it seems doubtful if it will ever be 

 surpassed, though larger fish are taken every 

 summer by other methods. 



Along the New Jersey coast the anglers have 

 not been quite so successful, though numerous 

 smaller fish have been taken. The big ones are 

 there, however, for a 1.080-pound tuna was har- 

 pooned at Wildwood, N. J., on Julj^ 27 of this 

 year, according to the Philadelphia Daily 

 Ledger for August i, in which appears a photo- 

 graph of the fish after its capture. This fish 

 towed a dory with its crew for fifteen miles in 

 three hours before a second harpoon could be 

 thrown. 



In the region about Block Island the tuna 

 seems to be particularly abundant and for the 

 past seven years has been taken in large num- 

 bers. Hundreds of sportsmen have there en- 

 gaged these hardiest of all game fishes and with 

 great success. A flourishing tuna club has been 

 organized with permanent quarters on the island. 

 Mr. Charles W. Willard of Westerly, R. I., 

 commissioner of fisheries for that state, is presi- 

 dent of the club. 



In the Annual Report of the Rhode Island 

 Commissioners of Inland Fisheries, January, 

 1914, Mr. Willard calls attention to the develop- 

 ment of the tuna fishing industry at Block Is- 

 land. According to this report, large numbers 

 have been taken on hand lines, baited with a 

 wooden jig, made bright with aluminum paint. 

 Only the smaller fish, weighing fifteen to sev- 

 ent^'-five pounds, can be handled in this manner, 

 as larger ones either break the lines or tear 

 out the liooks and escape. Some idea of the 

 abundance of the tuna in Block Island waters 

 may be gained from the report of the deputy 

 assigned to the task of collecting data on the 

 fishery in 1913. "From the twenty-fifth day 

 of July to the twentieth of October, 10,000 

 were caught by hook and line, averaging from 

 fifteen to thirty pounds. In the same period, 



