of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
171 
III.— ON OVERFISHING OF THE SEA ANT) THE CULTURE 
Ob" SEA FISH. T»y Dr T. Wemyss Fulton, F.R.S.E., Secretary 
for Scientific Investigations. (Plates III., IV.). 
I. Introductory. 
Probably the most fundamental and important question in connection 
with sea fisheries — especially those prosecuted assiduously in an area 
comparatively confined, such as the North Sea — -which minister to the 
needs of largo populations rapidly augmenting in numbers, wealth, and 
means of intercommunication, is this : Are these fisheries capable of 
expansion, pari passu, with the necessities of the people ? Can the supply 
of food derived from the sea continue, unaided, to meet the ever-increas- 
ing demand ? The question has been answered Yea and Nay on many- 
occasions ; it has been the basis, expressed or implied, of several Royal 
Commissions, and it has inspired much fishery legislation, one way or 
the other, according to the views held at the time. In regard to the other 
great sources of food supply, no such question need, be asked : mankind 
since prehistoric times has depended for its bread and its beef upon 
profound interference with natural conditions. 
Concerning the food supply obtained from the sea, it is admitted on all 
hands that the fisheries for shell-fish — oysters, mussels, cockles, clams, &c», 
which partake of a terrestrial character, can be, and have in many places 
been, exhausted or destroyed by the operations of man. The same is 
true with the fisheries for ambulatory shell-fish, such as lobsters and 
crabs, whose distribution is confined to a limited zone around the coasts. 
But there is by no means the same agreement respecting the fishings 
in the open sea. It has been contended by the most eminent authori- 
ties that the sea cannot be overfished. The destructive influences which 
man can bring to bear upon fish life, they say, are infinitesimal when 
compared with the great reproductive capacity of sea fishes, and the 
destructive forces of nature as manifested in the action of physical laws 
and the perpetual strife of organism against organism; that the sea, in 
short, is a storehouse of food material, the resources of which are prac- 
tically unlimited and inexhaustible. The doctrine of this school may be 
summed up in the following opinion of the celebrated naturalist, Van 
Beneden, its most eminent exponent on the Continent. ' The fecundity 
' of fish,' he says, 'is so great, the quantity of immature fish destroyed 
' is so small in comparison with the immensity of the sea, that it does 
' not matter where or when the fishery is carried on, or with what 
{ engines, man is unable to disturb the equilibrium which the Creator 
' has established between destruction and reproduction — between life 
' and death.' 
On the other hand, authorities of equal eminence declare, and 
their declarations gather force with the progress of statistical and 
scientific enquiries, not oaly that over-fishing in the sea is possible, but 
that it has occurred, and is going on now in connection with certain 
fisheries and certain areas. 
In this country the subject may be said to have passed through three 
phases or periods, to each of which I may briefly refer. Up to about 
thirty years ago it was but little questioned that over-fishing could occur. 
Hence the general practice was to regulate fisheries, not merely from the 
police point of view, but in relation to the instruments of capture, the 
