Part 7

The scene of operations of the North Sea fisherman is by no means 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 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.

To conclude our argument, we should now examine the question whether it is possible to determine to what extent and in what manner the destruction of immature fish, which is admittedly enormous, is injurious to the permanent supply. We have already referred to Mr. Holt’s statistics, which showed that 40 per cent. of the plaice landed in Grimsby in the year 1893-1894 were below 13 inches in length. In 1904, 30 per cent. of the plaice landed from the North Sea on the whole East Coast were below 11 inches in length. German statistics show that from 1895 to 1904 there was no sensible increase in the total weight of plaice landed in that country, but the proportion of ‘small’ fish (below 14 inches in length) steadily increased from 68 per cent. in 1895 to 87 per cent. in 1904. There can thus be little doubt that the supply is being maintained only by drawing more and more upon the fish of smaller size and of less value.

It seems to have been too readily assumed, however, that this increasing destruction of small plaice is the great cause of the declining catches of better fish. Has the cart not been put before the horse? In view of what has been said above concerning the general severity of the fishing, does it not look as though the capture of increasing quantities of small plaice were a consequence, and not the cause, of the general depletion of the grounds? The people demand plaice. The proprietor of a large fried-fish shop in the East End was a witness before the House of Lords Committee on the Sea-Fisheries Bill of 1904. His customers numbered from 500 to 3,000 daily; and there were 2,000 other establishments of the same kind in London. He told the Committee: ‘Plaice is the most popular fish in our line of business; people do not care for any other.’ Owing to the higher price of plaice, however, he was often compelled to substitute cheaper kinds of fish. In one month he had even made five purchases of small turbot and brill, against only two of plaice, in order to meet the demand. ‘You must understand,’ he added, ‘that amongst the class of people we deal with we do not sell turbot and brill as turbot and brill; we have to sell it as plaice. Plenty of people, if you said you had turbots, would not have them.’ It is obvious that fishermen would not land small plaice if large were plentiful. It was not until the large fish became scarce that fishermen began to take the small.

If these facts are correctly stated, the remedial treatment of the undersized-plaice problem must be taken up from a new standpoint. We must apparently give up the expectation that by merely stopping the destruction of small plaice we shall replenish the sea. The fishing seems to be too severe for that. Every autumn our trawlers fish the waters between the Dogger and the eastern grounds, confident that they will take a good catch of medium-sized plaice averaging 12 to 15 inches in length. These are fish which no fisherman in these days would despise. Though mixed with a considerable proportion of still smaller fish, no possible size-limit will prevent him from reaping this annual harvest. These fish, as has now been shown by the North Sea experiments, are undertaking their first migration from the coastal grounds to the deeper waters. However much we protect the still smaller fish inshore, this wall of nets will be interposed every autumn between the shore and the open sea. The greater the benefits of protection inshore, the denser will be the barrier confronting the fish outside, and the smaller the chances of escape.

To this must be added a new disturbing element, mentioned by Dr. Garstang in his evidence before the House of Lords Committee in 1904. It is generally agreed that the only possible form which protection can take is that of a size-limit, below which it shall be illegal to land or sell fish. In the case of steam-trawlers this limit must be high enough to render it unprofitable for the boats to fish on grounds where the small plaice are most abundant, since the majority of undersized fish are too much injured in the process of capture to be capable of survival if returned to the sea. It is otherwise with the small local sailing-boats (whether Danish, German, or Dutch) which are accustomed to fish on the small-fish grounds. These boats catch the fish alive and throw the undersized fish overboard in a living condition. As they can operate nowhere else, it may be taken for granted that the Governments of their respective countries, however anxious they may be to improve the fisheries, will scarcely consent to impose such a size-limit as to render it unprofitable for their local boats to fish.

The utmost possible protection of the small plaice would consequently be attained by determining (a) a high size-limit for steam-trawlers, practically debarring them from fishing on the coastal grounds; and (b) the highest size-limit for sailing-boats that would be consistent with the profitable pursuit of their calling. The first pick of the fish would consequently fall to the local boats; and, if protection should result, as it is reasonable to expect, in an increase in the number of plaice on the coastal grounds, there would be every inducement for these local boats to multiply in number, with the laudable object of catching as many as possible of the marketable plaice before they could migrate to the offshore waters. In practice some fish would escape; but, in the absence of any restriction upon the number of local boats, there seems no reason to expect that the number of emigrant plaice would, in the long run, be any greater than at present. Even under existing conditions, the local fishery on the west coast of Denmark has developed from a value of about £40,000 in 1897 to nearly £80,000 in 1904.