History of the Atlantic Pearl-Oyster, Pinctata imbricata, Industry in Venezuela and Colombia, with Biological and Ecological Observations

In the 1500’s, the waters of Venezuela and to a lesser extent Colombia produced more natural pearls than any place ever produced in the world in any succeeding century. Atlantic pearl-oysters, Pinctata imbricata Röding 1798, were harvested almost entirely by divers. The pearls from them were exported to Spain and other European countries. By the end of the 1500’s, the pearl oysters had become much scarcer, and little harvesting took place during the 1600’s and 1700’s. Harvesting began to accelerate slowly in the mid 1800’s and has since continued but at a much lower rate than in the 1500’s. The harvesting methods have been hand collecting by divers until the early 1960’s, dredging from the 1500’s to the present, and hardhat diving from 1912 to the early 1960’s. Since the mid 1900’s, Japan and other countries of the western Pacific rim have inundated world markets with cultured pearls that are of better quality and are cheaper than natural pearls, and the marketing of natural pearls has nearly ended. The pearl oyster fishery in Colombia ended in the 1940’s, but it has continued in Venezuela with the fishermen selling the meats to support themselves; previously most meats had been discarded. A small quantity of pearls is now taken, and the fishery, which comprised about 3,000 fishermen in 1947, comprised about 300 in 2002.

Menhaden: The Resource, The Industry, and a Management History

PREFACE: Four species of menhaden, Brevoortia spp., are found along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States. The Atlantic menhaden, B. tyrannus, is found from Nova Scotia, Can., to West Palm Beach, Fla.; the yellowfin menhaden, B. smithi, is found from Cape Lookout, N. C., to the Mississippi River Delta, La.;the Gulf menhaden, B. patronus, is found from Cape Sable, Fla., to Veracruz, Mex.; and the finescale menhaden, B. gunteri, is found from the Mississippi River Delta, La., to Campeche, Mex. Menhaden are euryhaline species that inhabit coastal and inland tidal waters. Spawning occurs principally at sea (in northern areas some spawning occurs in bays and sounds). Eggs hatch at sea and the larvae are moved to estuaries by ocean currents where they metamorphose and develop as juveniles.

The Oyster and the Oyster Industry of Maryland

Information n the life-history and management of the Oyster and Oyster Industry. Dr. Truitt has traveled and researched almost every important oyster producing Area in America. Includes semidiagramatic sketches of anatomy, information on food and feeding, respiration and circulation,valves, reproduction. Oyster production - natural beds or rocks, oyster farming, tongs and tonging, dredge. Marketing - canned, raw, shell stock. Includes bibliography. (PDF contains 47 pages)

History of whaling in and near North Carolina

This study aims to reconstruct the history of shore whaling in the southeastern United States, emphasizing statistics on the catch of right whales, Eubalaena glacialis, the preferred targets. The earliest record of whaling in North Carolina is of a proposed voyage from New York in 1667. Early settlers on the Outer Banks utilized whale strandings by trying out the blubber of carcasses that came ashore, and some whale oil was exported from the 1660s onward. New England whalemen whaled along the North Carolina coast during the 1720s, and possibly earlier. As some of the whalemen from the northern colonies moved to Nortb Carolina, a shore-based whale fishery developed. This activity apparently continued without interruption until the War of Independence in 1776, and continued or was reestablished after the war. The methods and techniques of the North Carolina shore whalers changed slowly: as late as the 1890s they used a drogue at the end of the harpoon line and refrained from staying fast to the harpooned whale, they seldom employed harpoon guns, and then only during the waning years of the fishery. The whaling season extended from late December to May, most successfully between February and May. Whalers believed they were intercepting whales migrating north along the coast. Although some whaling occurred as far north as Cape Hatteras, it centered on the outer coasts of Core, Shackleford, and Bogue banks, particularly near Cape Lookout. The capture of whales other than right whales was a rare event. The number of boat crews probably remained fairly stable during much of the 19th century, with some increase in effort in the late 1870s and early 1880s when numbers of boat crews reached 12 to 18. Then by the late 1880s and 1890s only about 6 crews were active. North Carolina whaling had become desultory by the early 1900s, and ended completely in 1917. Judging by export and tax records, some ocean-going vessels made good catches off this coast in about 1715-30, including an estimated 13 whales in 1719, 15 in one year during the early 1720s, 5-6 in a three-year period of the mid to late 1720s, 8 by one ship's crew in 1727, 17 by one group of whalers in 1728-29, and 8-9 by two boats working from Ocracoke prior to 1730. It is impossible to know how representative these fragmentary records are for the period as a whole. The Carolina coast declined in importance as a cruising ground for pelagic whalers by the 1740s or 1750s. Thereafter, shore whaling probably accounted for most of the (poorly documented) catch. Lifetime catches by individual whalemen on Shackleford Banks suggest that the average annual catch was at least one to two whales during 1830·80, perhaps about four during the late 1870s and early 1880s, and declining to about one by the late 1880s. Data are insufficient to estimate the hunting loss rate in the Outer Banks whale fishery. North Carolina is the only state south of New Jersey known to have had a long and well established shore whaling industry. Some whaling took place in Chesapeake Bay and along the coast of Virginia during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but it is poorly documented. Most of the rigbt whales taken off South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida during the 19th century were killed by pelagic whalers. Florida is the only southeastern state with evidence of an aboriginal (pre-contact) whale fishery. Right whale calves may have been among the aboriginal whalers' principal targets. (PDF file contains 34 pages.)

Quahogs in Eastern North America: Part II, History by Province and State

The northern quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria, ranges along the Atlantic Coast of North America from the Canadian Maritimes to Florida, while the southern quahog, M. campechiensis, ranges mostly from Florida to southern Mexico. The northern quahog was fished by native North Americans during prehistoric periods. They used the meats as food and the shells as scrapers and as utensils. The European colonists copied the Indians treading method, and they also used short rakes for harvesting quahogs. The Indians of southern New England and Long Island, N.Y., made wampum from quahog shells, used it for ornaments and sold it to the colonists, who, in turn, traded it to other Indians for furs. During the late 1600’s, 1700’s, and 1800’s, wampum was made in small factories for eventual trading with Indians farther west for furs. The quahoging industry has provided people in many coastal communities with a means of earning a livelihood and has given consumers a tasty, wholesome food whether eaten raw, steamed, cooked in chowders, or as stuffed quahogs. More than a dozen methods and types of gear have been used in the last two centuries for harvesting quahogs. They include treading and using various types of rakes and dredges, both of which have undergone continuous improvements in design. Modern dredges are equipped with hydraulic jets and one type has an escalator to bring the quahogs continuously to the boats. In the early 1900’s, most provinces and states established regulations to conserve and maximize yields of their quahog stocks. They include a minimum size, now almost universally a 38-mm shell width, and can include gear limitations and daily quotas. The United States produces far more quahogs than either Canada or Mexico. The leading producer in Canada is Prince Edward Island. In the United States, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island lead in quahog production in the north, while Virginia and North Carolina lead in the south. Connecticut and Florida were large producers in the 1990’s. The State of Tabasco leads in Mexican production. In the northeastern United States, the bays with large openings, and thus large exchanges of bay waters with ocean waters, have much larger stocks of quahogs and fisheries than bays with small openings and water exchanges. Quahog stocks in certified beds have been enhanced by transplanting stocks to them from stocks in uncertified waters and by planting seed grown in hatcheries, which grew in number from Massachusetts to Florida in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

The History of Oyster Farming in Australia

Aboriginal Australians consumed oysters before settlement by Europeans as shown by the large number of kitchen middens along Australia's coast. Flat oysters, Ostrea angasi, were consumed in southeastern Australia, whereas both flat and Sydney rock oysters, Saccostrea glomerata, are found in kitchen middens in southern New South Wales (NSW), but only Sydney rock oysters are found in northern NSW and southern Queensland. Oyster fisheries began with the exploitation of dredge beds, for the use of oyster shell for lime production and oyster meat for consumption. These natural oyster beds were nealy all exhausted by the late 1800's, and they have not recovered. Oyster farming, one of the oldest aquaculture industries in Australia, began as the oyster fisheries declined in the late 1800's. Early attempts at farming flat oysters in Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia, which started in the 1880's, were abandoned in the 1890's. However, a thriving Sydney rock oyster industry developed from primitive beginnings in NSW in the 1870's. Sydney rock oysters are farmed in NSW, southern Queensland, and at Albany, Western Australia (WA). Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, are produced in Tasmania, South Australia, and Port Stephens, NSW. FLant oysters currently are farmed only in NSW, and there is also some small-scale harvesting of tropical species, the coarl rock or milky oyster, S. cucullata, and th black-lip oyster, Striostrea mytiloides, in northern Queensland. Despite intra- and interstate rivalries, oyster farmers are gradually realizing that they are all part of one industry, and this is reflected by the establishment of the national Australian Shellfish Quality Assuarance Program and the transfer of farming technology between states. Australia's oyster harvests have remained relatively stable since Sydney rock oyster production peaked in the mid 1970's at 13 million dozen. By the end of the 1990's this had stabilized at around 8 million dozen, and Pacific oyster production reached a total of 6.5 million dozen from Tasmania, South Australia, and Port Stephens, a total of 14.5 million dozen oysters for the whole country. This small increase in production during a time of substantial human population growth shows a smaller per capita consumption and a declining use of oysters as a "side-dish."

Government-Industry Cooperative Fisheries Research in the North Pacific under the MSFCMA

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) has a long and successful history of conducting research in cooperation with the fishing industry. Many of the AFSC’s annual resource assessment surveys are carried out aboard chartered commercial vessels and the skill and experience of captains and crew are integral to the success of this work. Fishing companies have been contracted to provide vessels and expertise for many different types of research, including testing and evaluation of survey and commercial fishing gear and development of improved methods for estimating commercial catch quantity and composition. AFSC scientists have also participated in a number of industry-initiated research projects including development of selective fishing gears for bycatch reduction and evaluating and improving observer catch composition sampling. In this paper, we describe the legal and regulatory provisions for these types of cooperative work and present examples to illustrate the process and identify the requirements for successful cooperative research.

The history of contamination in sediments from the Mersey Estuary. Development of a chronology for the contamination of the Mersey Estuary by heavy metals and organochlorines

This is the history of contamination in sediments from the Mersey Estuary: Development of a chronology for the contamination of the Mersey Estuary by heavy metals and organochlorines Report produced by the Environment Agency in 1998. This report looks at the history of industrial contamination of the Mersey and Ribble Estuaries back to the early part of the last century, many decades before the start of monitoring programmes providing a remarkably detailed picture of very complex changes. There is a clear record in the sediment of the contamination by each heavy metal (including: Cu, Cr, Hg, Pb, Zn) and organochlorine chemical (including DDT isomers and PCB congeners) studied. The results of the study clearly show the increases in levels of contamination as industry expanded early last century followed by various improvements as this century progressed. Each pollutant has its own idiosyncratic pattern of change with some improvements predating modern environmental concerns whilst other changes seem to relate directly to recent improvements in legislative control. Overall, for the pollutants studied, the results clearly demonstrate the magnitude of improvement that has been achieved in what was a very polluted area. The only major reservation to this story is that despite the wide range of substances covered, many other potentially important pollutants remain to be studied in a similar manner.

The history and research results of the East African Freshwater Fisheries Research Organization from 1946 - 1966.

Continuous research on the freshwater fisheries industry in East Africa, in common with most other African countries, did not commence until the end of the Second World War in 1945. Before the war some work on the fishes and hydrobiology of the lakes of East Africa had been undertaken by a series of scientific expeditions, which were sent out from Europe, between the years 1896 and 1939. These expeditions usually lasted for only a few months, and the collected data were published by young graduates and undergraduates, including such people as Mr. L. C. Beadle, (lately Professor Beadle of Makerere), Mr. V. E. Fuchs (now Sir Vivian Fuchs) and Mr. E. B. Worthington of Gonville and Caius College,Cambridge. Later. Dr. Worthington became Scientific Secretary to the Scientific Council for Africa, Scientific Secretary to the East African High Commission, and played a very large part in the furtherance of fisheries research and management in East Africa.