* Soft-Shell Clams - The soft shell clam harvest has de¬ 
clined dramatically since it peaked in the mid-1960s. Can we 
significantly increase the yield-per-recruit by reducing the 
minimum legal size, as recent preliminary studies have suggest¬ 
ed? 
Other examples of declining stocks could be given. 
2. Allocation conflicts . Conflicts arise between 
recreational and commercial interests, users of traditional and 
modern fishing gears, and among states. 
3. Determining the timing, location, and probability of 
success of oyster shell and spat landings . The oyster 
repletion program is the cornerstone of oyster management in the 
Chesapeake Bay. How effective is this program with respect to 
maintaining or rehabilitating oyster stocks? 
4. Predicting the effects of hatchery construction for 
striped bass and oysters . For example, what is the likelihood 
of hatchery fry adding a significant enhancement effect to the 
striped bass population(s) or reducing heterogeneity of the wild 
stock. 
5. Measuring the effectiveness of management activities . At 
present, we cannot because we do not have, among other things, 
good catch and effort statistics. 
The points raised above represent some of the day-to-day 
problems faced by fishery management agencies and researchers. 
The Fundamental Issues 
We need to see serious consideration of the underlying, 
fundamental problems, which are essentially institutional 
issues. There is no system in place to provide overall 
strategic direction and focus to: 
1. Fisheries Statistics - Catch and fishing effort for all 
species in the Bay are vaguely known. For most fisheries, there 
are no effort statistics and without these it is difficult to 
tell whether fluctuations in catch relate merely to changes in 
fishing effort or whether, in fact, they relate to actual 
changes in abundance of the populations. Without some appraisal 
of the catch and changes in catch per unit of effort, it is 
extremely difficult to determine changes in fish populations — 
except those that are catastrophic — and hence the quality of 
management decisions cannot be known. 
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