12 



Crawfish: The harvest of 8,8 m ill io n 

 pounds valued at a little over $1.8 million put 

 it in fourth place among the State's leading 

 species in volume and fifth in value. 



Marylandl 



ANCIENT OYSTER SHELLS FOUND 



The Department of Chesapeake Bay Af- 

 fairs has proof that some oyster shells it 

 recently dredged up were flourishing at the 

 time of the Roman Empire. 



Fred W. Sieling, chief of the Department's 

 resources management division, said the 

 Geochron Laboratories, Inc., of Cambridge, 

 Mass., conducted carbon 14 tests to deter- 

 mine their age. 



The tests proved that oyster shells in a 

 deposit 4 miles north of the Chesapeake Bay 

 Bridge were thriving in 140 B.C. 



The shells appear no older than any other 

 shell. They were dredged up from 15 feet 

 below the bottom, said Sieling, from a 10- 

 foot -thick deposit. The half shells are much 

 larger; some weigh well over a pound each. 



Some shells were found in a 20-foot- 

 thick deposit, which indicate that sometimes 

 there was a high mortality rate. They were 

 1,845 years old. 



Sieling said the death rate could have 

 been due to drills, boring sponges, a fresh- 

 et that lowered the saline level beyond tol- 

 erance, or even an ancient form of the MSX 

 disease. 



Michigan 



EDA PROCESSING PLANT COMPLETED 



A full-scale pilot processing facility has 

 been completed at Hancock, Mich. It is a 

 project of the Commerce Department's Eco- 

 nomic Development Administration Technical 

 Assistance Project for the Lake Superior 

 area. The facility is being operated by In- 

 land Seas, Inc., a corporation formed by 

 processors on Lake Superior. The operation 



is designed primarily to produce raw, individ- 

 ually quick-frozen unbreaded and breaded 

 Cisco and chub fillets, and gutted and headed 

 smelt products. BCF staff met with Inland 

 Seas, Inc., in October to complete details of 

 the operation. 



;!£ :{c 5!i >[< >!< 



MEAL PLANT PLANNED 



A fish meal plant will be built at Menominee 

 this winter. It will greatly increase the poten- 

 tial for harvesting more Lake Michigan ale- 

 wife. Alewife production this year is already 

 about 20 million pounds --up substantially 

 from last year's 14.1 million pounds. Lake 

 Michigan trawlers are expected to land 3 to 

 5 million pounds more by December 31, 1966. 



Missouri 



FEDERAL AID PROJECT PRODUCTIVE 



Under the Federal Aid project, the State 

 produced more than 62 million goldfish, bull- 

 heads, and various species of minnows --and 

 over 5 million catfish, rainbow trout, bass, 

 and panfish. One goldfish breeder alone re- 

 ported he employed 67 persons, including 7 

 fishery biologists. 



North and South Dakota 



ESTIMATE FISH IN OAHE RESERVOIR 



Based on the recovery of marked fish in 

 the commercial fishery and trap net catches, 

 about 8,641,000 pounds of bigmouth buffalo- 

 fish were estimated to be in Oahe Reservoir in 

 1965. The reservoir is on the Missouri River 

 in North and South Dakota. Without further 

 recruitment, the population will support from 

 300,000 to 900,000 pounds of commercial 

 production annually for the next 10 years -- 

 but will drop sharplybelow 300,000 after that. 



The standing crop of fish, age -group II 

 and older, was estimated to be 52 million 

 pounds, or 239 pounds per acre. Carp made 

 up half, but their average weight in September 

 1966 was only about 2 pounds. Only 1.5 per- 

 cent of the commercial stocks was removed 

 by the commercial fishery in 1964-1966. 



