The Sea Fisheries of the Southern United States

D EVELOPMENT of the natural resources of the southern United States, except farmland, has been slow as compared with that in other sections of the country. However, recognition and exploitation of the many natural assets of the South-minerals, water resources, forests, climate (tourism), and fisheries, to name the more significant oneshave finally come about. Fisheries are last on this list, and that is where they belong. Although the fisheries have received some attention in the port cities of the South for more than a century, they are still among the most neglected of all its recognized resources.' For the most part the southern fisheries have lagged far behind the fisheries of the only other regions with sea resources-the northeast coast and the Pacific states. Table I substantiates this observation neatly. New England exceeds the South Atlantic and Gulf states in value of finfish products, but not in quantity. However, if the entire Chesapeake, Middle Atlantic, and New England area is included in the northeastern states, the quantity of these states is nearly twice that of the southern states, and the value of the catch is more than twice that of the southern catch. These figures are even more appalling when it is realized that two products, shrimp and industrial fish (menhaden), constitute the bulk of the southern catch both in quantity and in dollar value. In 1959, 1,082,352,000 pounds of menhaden and 219,509,000 pounds of shrimp were taken. When these figures are subtracted from the total of 1,623,663,000 pounds of seafood products for the South Atlantic and Gulf region, only 321,802,000 pounds are left for all other finfish and shellfish. Add to this the fact that the South Atlantic and Gulf states collectively have several times as much coastline as the northeastern states, and the catch difference is even more astounding. This production disparity was several times greater in past decades than it is today.2

Biology · Fishery · Geography · Geology · Marine and fisheries research · Oceanography

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