SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 373 



September of every year. As the result of 7 years' experi- 

 mental fishing it was found that 567 young Plaice were 

 taken in an average haul with a shrimp trawl on this 

 ground in those months. Now during those 3 months 15 

 shrimp trawling boats on the average are fishing there 

 every day, each boat making 3 hauls per day on five 

 days per week, 2,925 hauls in all. Supposing each boat 

 to have made the average catch of 567 young Plaice, over 

 one and a half millions of young fishes would have been 

 caught on this area alone during the three months men- 

 tioned per year. It must be remembered that in the 

 fishing as ordinarily practised the great majority of these 

 are really destroyed. 



The enormous destruction of young fishes due to this 

 method of fishing will be realised when we state that there 

 are altogether about 100 boats employed in shrimp trawl- 

 ing in the Mersey estuary, and the grounds seaward from 

 the river, and that the above calculation applies to only 

 15 of these frequenting a particular area for 3 months. 

 The Mersey is not the only district in which shrimp trawl- 

 ing is practised. Just as active fishing is carried on in the 

 Kibble estuary and in Morecambe Bay and in many parts 

 of the coast, k ' cart-shanking '' — an equally destructive 

 form of fishing, is practised. We believe we are under 

 the mark in stating that the yearly destruction of young 

 Plaice on the Lancashire and Cheshire coasts before the 

 closure of the Blackpool ground due to shrimp trawling 

 must be measured by the hundred million. 



It is a regrettable circumstance that regulation with 

 a view to the protection of the young Plaice on the nursery 

 grounds must to some extent interfere with the prosecu- 

 tion of shrimp trawling, but it seems probable that the loss 

 incurred by the latter fishery would be more than com- 

 pensated by an increased number of Plaice on the fishing 



