limited to the area in the map over which the two words wander. Roughly,
for purposes of definition, we may say that a North Sea fisherman is one
who lands his fish at an eastern port. Should he do so at a southern or
western port, even though he hail from Lowestoft or Scarborough, he
temporarily ceases, for our purpose, to be a North Sea fisherman. The
North Sea codmen work along the Orkneys, the Shetland and Faröe Islands,
Rockall and Iceland. The fishing-grounds of East Coast trawlers now
range from Iceland and the White Sea to the coasts of Portugal and
Morocco. Boats have gradually made their way along the Continental
coasts on the eastern side of the North Sea, opening up, about the year
1868, the grounds to the north of the Horn reef off the Danish coast. In
this direction, as in the Icelandic grounds, the pioneers have been the
codmen and the ‘liners,’ who catch their fish on hooks attached to long
lines--sometimes seven miles in length and carrying 7,000 hooks--which
are lowered to near the bottom and attached to buoys. The ‘liners’ also
first exploited the more central portions of the North Sea, fishing the
great Fisher Bank for many years before the appearance there, about
thirty years ago, of the trawlers, who have only used it as a
winter-ground since about 1885. It was not until about 1891 that
trawlers visited the Icelandic grounds.
In spite of the increase in the area of the fishing-ground which took
place in the last century, the intensity of the fishing has more than
kept up with the new areas exploited. Professor Huxley’s Commission held
the view that not only were there as good fish in the sea as ever came
out of it, but that the fish were as many and as large as before, and
that there was no reason to suppose their number would diminish. Indeed,
when we consider that an unfertilized fish-egg is rarely found in the
sea, and that, according to Dr. Fulton, of the Fishery Board for
Scotland, the female turbot produces annually 8,600,000 eggs, the cod
4,500,000, the haddock 450,000, the plaice 300,000, the flounder
1,400,000, the sole 570,000, whilst the herring has to be content with
the comparatively meagre total of 31,000, optimism seems permissible. On
the other hand, the reflection that, if the stock of cod remains about
constant, only two out of the 8,600,000 ova attain maturity, gives some
idea of the destructive forces at work.
The eggs are expelled into water, whilst a male is ‘standing by,’
fertilized in the water, and (except in the case of the herring, whose
eggs sink) those of the chief food-fishes float to the surface, where
they pass the first stages of their development. Except, again in the
case of the herring, which has definitely localized spawning-grounds,
there has hitherto been little trustworthy evidence as to the existence
either of stereotyped spawning migrations or of very definite
breeding-grounds in the case of the chief food-fishes. The great Lofoten
cod-fishery in spring is based on such a migration, as it is at this
time of the year that the cod approach the coast in dense shoals for
spawning purposes. During the summer, after the spawning is over, the
cod disappear northwards. But with respect to the spawning habits of
fishes in the waters most frequented by British fishermen we know little
more than that the greater number of fish spawn in relatively deep water
and at some distance from land. Light will doubtless be thrown upon this
problem by the international investigations now in progress. The
brilliant discovery by the Danish investigators of immense numbers of
the fry of the common eel in the deep water of the Atlantic, west of
Ireland, and the absence of the eggs and fry from the North Sea and
Baltic, render it practically certain that the countless hordes of eels
which leave the rivers of North Western Europe in autumn migrate to the
ocean for spawning purposes; and, more remarkable still, that the
delicate young elvers which enter the same streams in autumn have
already overcome the perils of their long return migration.
Before considering the evidence for the existence of a progressive
impoverishment of the fishing-grounds, it should be recorded that the
Trawling Commission of 1885 held that the increase of trawling had led
to a scarcity of fish in the inshore waters; and that to get good
catches it was necessary to go farther to sea. Eight years later, the
Select Committee of 1893 held that ‘a considerable diminution [had]
occurred among the more valuable classes of flat-fish, especially among
soles and plaice’; and that of 1900 reported that ‘the subject of the
diminution of the fish-supply is a very pressing one, and that the
situation is going from bad to worse.’
The evidence which induced this change of view rests partly on
experiment, partly on statistics. Although the new view may be correct,
none of the older sources of evidence are altogether satisfactory. One
charge which used to be made against the trawl--that it destroyed the
fish-spawn--has been disproved. The ova of all the prime food-fish, as
we have seen, with the exception of those of the herring, float on the
surface; and the herring is a fish that shows no sign of diminishing in
number. In 1886 the Scottish Fishery Board began experiments to
determine whether the number and size of fish were diminishing on a
certain limited area or not. The Firth of Forth and St. Andrews Bay were
closed against commercial trawling, and divided into stations. Once a
month the ship employed by the Board visited each station and trawled
over a given area. The fish taken were counted and measured. For the
first few years the results indicated an increase of food-fish; but,
taking a longer period and considering the flat-fishes alone, we find
that the numbers of plaice and lemon-sole taken sank from 29,869 for the
five years 1885-1890, to 28,044 for the five years 1891-1895. On the
other hand, the dab, a comparatively worthless fish, had increased from
19,825 to 29,483.
These figures, it is true, have not been generally accepted as an exact
measure of the changes which took place during the period investigated;
but independent criticism has corroborated their general tendency. It
looks as if protection had been encouraging the wrong sort--a process
not unknown elsewhere. The explanation possibly lies in the facts
adduced by Dr. Fulton that the plaice and lemon-soles spawn only in the
deep water outside the closed areas, where they are subject to
continuous fishing, with the apparent result of a decrease in the number
of eggs and fry inshore; whilst the dabs spawn to a large extent in the
protected waters, and many of them in the offshore waters are able, in
consequence of their small size, to escape through the meshes of the
commercial trawl, even when mature.
Two further experiments, carried out in 1890 and 1901 by the Scottish
Fishery Board and the Marine Biological Association respectively, showed
for the first time that the annual harvest of a given area bears a much
larger proportion to the stock of fish than had been previously
supposed. These were experiments with marked fish, designed originally
to trace their migrations. Out of more than 1,200 plaice liberated in
the Firth of Forth and St. Andrews Bay, more than 10 per cent. were
recovered almost exclusively by hook and line. Owing to these waters
being closed against trawlers, there is reason to believe that the
number actually recaptured by trawl and line together was very much
greater. Again, out of more than 400 marked plaice liberated on the
Torbay fishing-grounds, 27 per cent. of those liberated in the bay, and
35 per cent. of those set free on the offshore grounds, were recaptured
by trawlers.
The evidence derived from statistics has hitherto been, in many
respects, unsatisfactory. In spite of the recommendations of more than
one Royal Commission, nothing was done towards a systematic collection
of fishery statistics until the late Duke of Edinburgh, at a conference
held at the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883, happened to read a paper on
some statistics collected by coastguards as to the quantity and quality
of fish landed. This paper being sent to the Board of Trade, ‘it was
decided to establish a collection of fishery statistics for England and
Wales on the same lines, and generally by the same machinery, as has
been recommended by His Royal Highness.’ Unfortunately, neither the
lines nor the machinery have proved sound. The officials have also been
hampered by want of funds. The Treasury offered £500 (afterwards
increased to £700) a year for statistical purposes--a totally inadequate
sum when distributed as wages among the 157 ‘collectors’ scattered round
our coasts. The duties of these collectors were to send monthly returns
of thirteen different kinds of ‘wet fish’ and three kinds of shellfish,
stating the quantities landed and the market value at the port. They had
no powers to demand information from anyone, or to examine books or
catches or market-and railway-returns; and they were subject to but
little if any supervision.
Not only were these statistics untrustworthy, even as a simple record of
the quantities of fish landed, but they were rendered practically
useless for exact inquiries concerning the decline of the fisheries,
through the neglect of any precautions to discriminate between the
catches in the home waters and those on distant fishing-grounds of a
totally different character. Fish from Iceland, Faröe, and the Bay of
Biscay, as these areas were successively exploited, all went to swell
the totals in the single column of ‘fish landed,’ thus rendering it
quite impossible to determine the state of the fishery on the older
fishing-grounds around our coasts. Taking the statistics as they stand,
however, we find that during 1886-1888 the average quantity of fish
annually landed on the coasts of England and Wales amounted to 6,263,000
cwt., valued at £3,805,000; during 1890-1892, 6,184,000 cwt., valued at
£4,496,000; during 1900-1902, 9,242,000 cwt., valued at £6,543,000.
The average price of fish per cwt. in these periods was consequently
12s. 2d. in 1886-1888, 14s. 6½d. in 1890-1892, and 14s. 3½d. in
1900-1902. The census returns indicate that the population of England
and Wales had risen in the meantime from about 28,000,000 in 1887 to
29,000,000 in 1891, and 32½ millions in 1901. We thus see that the
people were steadily increasing their expenditure on fish, viz., from
2s. 9d. per head in 1887 to 3s. 1d. in 1891, and to 4s. per head in
1901. The quantity consumed amounted to 25 lb. per head in 1887, 23·9
lb. in 1891, and 38·8 lb. in 1901.
To appreciate the significance of these figures it is necessary to bear
in mind that, prior to 1891, the fishing was mostly prosecuted in the
North Sea and in the immediate neighbourhood of our coasts. During this
period the price rose 20 per cent. and the supply fell--facts which
indicate with tolerable certainty that the yield of the older
fishing-grounds had reached its limits, if it was not actually
declining. But in the following decade the conditions were reversed; the
supply increased 50 per cent., and the price fell 3d. per cwt. This was
the period of rapid increase in the number of steam-trawlers, of the
exploitation of new fishing-grounds in distant waters, and of a great
expansion of the herring-fishery.
There was thus no question of a general scarcity of fish. Fishing-boats
were multiplying, and supplies increasing by leaps and bounds. Between
1891 and 1901 the average annual catch of plaice rose from 677,000 cwt.
to 959,000 cwt., that of cod from 367,000 to 748,000 cwt., and that of
herrings from 1,400,000 to 2,800,000 cwt. In the absence of specific
information as to the yield of the older fishing-grounds, Parliament and
the Government turned a deaf ear to the fishermen’s complaints.
But in 1900 it was shown to the Parliamentary Committee on the Sea
Fisheries Bill of that year that, during the past decade, characterized
(as we have seen) by a general fall in the price of fish, the price of
plaice had risen 17 per cent., and that of other valuable flat-fishes
from 3 to 6 per cent. It was also shown that, while the catching power
had multiplied three-fold in ten years, the catch of trawled fish had
only increased 30 per cent. In 1901 the inspectors of fisheries provided
a table contrasting for ten years the annual supply of trawled fish at
Grimsby, Hull, and Boston (which receive the products of the Icelandic
fisheries), with that of other East Coast ports which derive their fish
exclusively from the North Sea. In the former ports the supply had
increased from year to year, while at the other ports the supply during
the years 1895-1900 was in no year so great as in the least productive
of the years 1890-1895. The fishermen’s case was at last made out; and
in 1902 the late Government decided to participate in the investigations
recommended by the Christiania Conference in 1901 for the purpose of
formulating international measures for the improvement of the North Sea
fisheries.
It is satisfactory to turn from the past records of neglect, from the
supineness of the authorities, the imperfections of the statistics, the
inadequate pittance devoted to investigations, to the progress which has
taken place since the Government decided to devote a reasonable
proportion of public funds to the improvement of knowledge on fishery
subjects. The collection of official statistics has been reorganized on
all our coasts on a system which aims at obtaining complete accounts of
the results of each voyage of every first-class fishing-boat; the
catches of trawlers and liners are now distinguished; the quantities of
fish caught in the North Sea are distinguished from those taken beyond
that area; the quantities of large, medium, and small fish are
separately recorded in important cases; the numbers, tonnage, and
landings of different classes of fishing-vessels are separately
enumerated.
It is interesting to note the first results of the more exact system
introduced in 1903. Considering only the fish caught in the North Sea
and landed on the East Coast, we note a marked decline in the total
catch of steam-trawlers during the years 1904, 1905, and 1906, and an
increase in the catch of sailing trawlers. The former declined from 4¾
million cwt. in 1903 to 3¾ million cwt. in 1905; the latter increased
from 277,000 cwt. in 1903 to 296,000 cwt. in 1905. It is shown, however,
that these changes were accompanied by a considerable fall in the amount
of fishing by steam-trawlers and a rise in the case of the sailing
trawlers, so that inferences concerning impoverishment or the reverse
would be premature. Nevertheless a fall in the abundance of haddock may
be inferred from the fact that not only the total catch of this species,
but also the average catch of the boats fell off continuously from 8·4
cwt. per diem in 1903 to 6·1 cwt. per diem in 1905. The fall is also
seen to be mainly due to a scarcity of ‘small’ haddocks in 1904 and 1905
as compared with 1903. With the conclusions to which such data as these
are likely to lead we are not now concerned; but these examples are
sufficient to show that the official statistics are no longer a confused
mass of useless figures, but a rational and fairly accurate system
capable of analysis.
We have now to examine those experimental branches of investigation
which are equally necessary for the effective solution of fishery
problems. The chief possible causes of an impoverishment of the sea are
three in number. First, as in the central United States the accumulated
richness of a virgin soil produced at first huge crops, so, when fishing
began in the North Sea an accumulated wealth, both in the number and in
the greater size of the individual fish, was drawn upon. This
‘accumulated stock’ has been fished out.
Secondly, a given area of the sea, like a given area of land can support
but a limited quantity of produce. There is a definite amount of food
for fish in a definite volume of sea; a limit is therefore set to the
number of fish in that volume of water. Professor Hensen and Professor
Brandt, of Kiel, have shown that a square metre of the Baltic produces
an average of 150 grammes of dry organic material in the shape of
diatoms, copepods, and other floating organisms. A similar area of land
produces 180 grammes of ultimate food-substance. The productivity of the
sea is judged on this basis to be about 20 per cent. less than that of
the land. The actual amount is of less importance than the consequences
it entails. If the methods of fishing are more destructive of one
species than another, comparatively worthless species may become
dominant in areas where they were formerly scarce, and thus consume the
food which should be reserved for their betters. It is commonly reported
that the dab has tended to usurp the position formerly taken by the
plaice, not only in the Scottish firths, but on the Dogger Bank, in the
Devonshire bays, and in other localities. Dr. Garstang, of the Marine
Biological Association, tells us that small plaice transplanted to the
Dogger Bank in 1904 grew three times as much in weight as did their
fellows on the coastal banks; but in the following year they grew only
twice as much, owing to the presence of vast quantities of small
haddocks, which ate the plaice’s food and were nevertheless too small
and worthless themselves to be landed by the fishermen. Yet formerly the
Dogger teemed with large plaice and haddock. It was stated to the Royal
Commission in 1863 that the fishermen avoided the Bank as causing gluts
of fish and depreciation of price; and witnesses from Yarmouth and Hull
assured the Commission that between two and three tons of fish, chiefly
haddock and plaice, were frequently taken by smacks in a three hours’
haul. As small plaice are confined to the coastal banks, and large
plaice are now scarce, it follows that the great food-reserves on the
Dogger Bank, which seem providentially designed for the fattening of
plaice, are wasted on worthless dabs and baby haddocks. Thus may one
cause of impoverishment lead on to another. Perhaps the right remedy in
a case like this is to promote the wholesale transplantation of young
plaice, as in the case of oysters, mussels, etc. The experiments already
made by the Marine Biological Association point strongly in this
direction.
Thirdly, the excessive destruction of young fish is another, and perhaps
the greatest, cause of the impoverishment of the sea. The destruction is
enormous. In the winter of 1882-1883 it was estimated that in the Firth
of Forth, the Firth of Tay, and the Moray Firth, 143,000,000 of young
herrings and a much greater quantity of sprats were captured. These were
mostly sold as manure. Yet the herring does not decrease; it is the
flat-fish, the plaice and the sole, that suffer most. In 1896, 368 tons
of small fish were seized by the Fishmongers Company at Billingsgate; in
1897, 143 tons; and in 1898, 96 tons. These were sold as manure or
destroyed. Mr. Holt estimates that, while over 7,000,000 mature plaice
were landed in the port of Grimsby during the year April, 1893, to
March, 1894, over 9,000,000 plaice not sexually mature were brought to
port; or, taking the trade distinction between ‘small’ and ‘large’ fish,
over 6,500,000 plaice under 13 inches in length were landed, as against
9,700,000 over 13 inches. So many as 10,407 young plaice have been taken
from a single drag of a shrimp trawl. These are but a few instances out
of many, showing the great destruction which is going on among the young
of our more valuable food-fishes.
The questions they suggest are still a matter of discussion. Whether
even this destruction has an appreciable effect on the adult population
is debatable. It does not seem to have affected the herring; and we
must not forget the prodigious number of offspring given to fish. The
taking of immature fish is not in itself uneconomic, unless by that
means we so far reduce the total number that the adult stock begins to
dwindle. Sardines are more valuable than their adult form, the pilchard;
whitebait, mainly composed of young sprats, with from 1 to 20 per cent.
of young herrings, fetch more in the market than the parent form; and so
long as the adults exist in sufficient number to keep up the stock of
fry, sardine and whitebait fishing is perfectly legitimate.
But, assuming impoverishment from one or other or all of the causes
enumerated, we should ask what steps can be taken to check it,
especially as regards the more valuable flat-fish. It is at this stage
that scientific knowledge becomes particularly important. At least nine
out of every ten Acts of restrictive legislation have been shown by
experience to be futile, or to have produced results absolutely
different from those anticipated. It is equally plain that the failure
of these attempts to interfere with the natural course of events has
been largely due to inadequate knowledge of the complicated factors
which affect the growth, multiplication, and distribution of fish, and
of the influence which particular modes of fishing exert upon the
sources of supply.
Let us examine the first-mentioned cause of impoverishment, the
destruction of the ‘accumulated stock.’ This formula has been eagerly
adopted by some who hesitate to admit the existence of any form of
over-fishing. It implies that a state of equilibrium is possible between
the forces of destruction and the forces of repair; that on virgin
territory older individuals tend to accumulate beyond what is necessary
for the maintenance of the ‘current stock’; and that their removal
entails no real injury to the supply. In scientific terms this means
that the average age of mature individuals of a natural stock may be
reduced by man to a lower point which represents the economic optimum.
The Patagonian cannibals seem to have been early converts to the
soundness of this theory. The difference between the Patagonian who eats
his mother-in-law and the fisherman who destroys the overgrown plaice is
that the former’s actions are deliberate and limited, while the removal
of the accumulated stock is not so much an object of the fisherman as an
unpremeditated consequence of the intensity with which fishing
operations tend to be conducted. Does the fisherman abate his operations
when the economic optimum has been reached? Clearly not. He fishes till
it ceases to pay; and no other motive affects him. It is plainly a
question for scientific inquiry whether, in a given case, the fishery
has been prosecuted to excess, and has reduced the average age too far,
or not.
On this question the International North Sea Investigations have already
thrown valuable light, for the study of the intensity of fishing by
means of definite experiments with marked fish has formed an important
part of the programme; and the investigation of the age of plaice, cod,
and other species has been vigorously prosecuted. According to the
latest report of the Council of the Marine Biological Association, more
than 7,000 marked plaice have been set free by their staff, and 24 per
cent. altogether have been recaptured. Of the medium-sized fish which,
furnish the best test of the intensity of fishing, 30 per cent. in
twelve months have been captured in the southern part of the North Sea,
where sailing trawlers predominate, and 40 per cent. on the Dogger Bank
and adjacent grounds, where the fishing is done by steam-trawlers. It
seems, however, that some of the fish lose their labels before being
caught again. A still closer idea of the severity of the fishing may
perhaps be got from another experiment with weighted bottles, which
were specially devised by Mr. G. P. Bidder to act as indicators of
bottom currents, and were thrown overboard from the _Huxley_ in the
winter of 1904-1905, in the southward parts of the North Sea. Out of 600
bottles more than 54 per cent. were returned by trawl fishermen within
twelve months. If anything like half the adolescent stock of plaice is
taken by our trawlers every year on the deep-sea fishing-grounds, the
establishment of the fact must profoundly affect our views as to the
causes of depletion and the remedies to be applied; for the fishing in
these instances seems not to have been on the so-called ‘small-fish’
grounds or nurseries, but in areas which have always been recognized as
legitimate fields of work.
The possibility of determining the age of fish is quite a recent
discovery, and is based on the observation that the scales, vertebræ,
and especially the ‘otoliths’ or ear-stones of fish, show alternate dark
and light rings of growth, corresponding with the summer and winter
seasons of the year, exactly like the rings in the wood of trees. Many
difficult problems are likely to be cleared up by a knowledge of the age
of fish on different fishing-grounds; and, to judge from the scale on
which this investigation is being pursued, it will not be long before we
may expect something in the nature of an age-census. The Council of the
Marine Biological Association have reported no less than 12,000
age-determinations of plaice by their North Sea staff up to June last;
and the German and Dutch investigators are working on similar lines.