UNIT 21 NEARSHORE FISHERIES

INTRODUCTION

	Many U.S. coastal and estuarine species provide important
recreational and commercial fisheries that are not Federally
managed. This diverse Unit includes highly prized gamefishes like
tarpon, bonefish, permit, and snook, as well as tautog,
surf-perches, and Florida pompano. It also includes small fishes
used for bait, food, or processing into oil and meal, such as
mullet, smelts, eulachon, ballyhoo, sardines, and herrings.
Valuable invertebrates like the Dungeness, blue, rock, and Jonah
crabs; Pacific shrimps, abalones, hard and softshell clams, bay
scallops, and oysters are also in this group.
	For 1990-92, the average annual dockside revenue from the
commercial components of the fisheries in Table 21-1 was about $389
million. No separate values are available for the recreational
fisheries, but they are certainly significant, especially to many
coastal economies.

SPECIES AND STATUS

	Most species in this group (Table 21-1) live near shore during much
or all of their lives. Some, like the shads, herrings, smelts, and
the striped bass, are anadromous, ascending fresh water to spawn
but spending their adult lives in estuaries or at sea. In contrast,
the American eel lives much of its life in fresh or brackish water
but migrates far offshore to spawn in the Sargasso Sea (deep
Atlantic, beyond the Gulf Stream, off the U.S. southeast). 
These species are widely distributed. Bay scallops, hard and
softshell clams, and rock and Jonah crabs are among the important
fishery resources of the northeastern United States. Shads,
herrings, sardines, mullets, Florida pompano, and calico scallops
are fished primarily along the middle and southern U.S. Atlantic
coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the gamefishes are
particularly valuable to the Florida economy, while invertebrates,
like the blue crab and Atlantic oyster, support major fisheries
from the Gulf to Chesapeake Bay. 
	Corvina and striped bass are important sport fishes in California
waters, while surf-perches are fished along much of the U.S. west
coast. Other species like abalones, clams (hard, Pismo, razor),
eulachon, and surf smelt support both recreational and commercial
west coast fisheries. In the Pacific Northwest and southern Alaska,
Dungeness crabs, oysters, and shrimps support valuable commercial
fisheries.
	Bonefish, tarpon, snook, and permit are sought primarily by sport
fishermen who often employ professional guides. Other popular
recreational fishes, such as the surfperches and tautog, are caught
primarily from the beach or small boats. The small baitfishes and
food fishes are harvested by both recreational and commercial
fishermen using cast nets, gill nets, seines, dip nets, and pound
nets; the southern Florida ballyhoo fishery supplies bait to the
charterboat industry.
	Many methods are also used to harvest the invertebrate species.
Commercial and sport divers gather abalones, particularly off
southern and central California; fishermen in small boats dive,
dredge, and tong for oysters and rake hard clams; recreational
clammers dig Pismo clams on sandy beaches in central California and
razor clams in the Pacific Northwest; trawlers and divers take sea
urchins off the New England and northern Pacific coasts; and
commercial and recreational crabbers fish with pots, traps,
trotlines, dredges, and dip nets for blue, rock, and Jonah crabs on
the Atlantic coast and for Dungeness crabs on the Pacific coast.
Pacific shrimps are harvested with pots and trawls. Other species,
such as blue mussels, are both cultured and harvested from the
wild.
	The number of participants in these nearshore fisheries is
difficult to assess because of their diversity. There is no doubt,
however, that millions of recreational and commercial fishermen
seek these resources; there are, for example, an estimated 600,000+
recreational razor clam diggers in Washington alone. 
In general, landings for many of these species have declined in
recent years (Fig. 21-1, 21-2, 21-3,
21-4). Atlantic hard clam, softshell clam, bay scallop, and
abalone landings were substantially lower in the 1980's than in the
previous three decades. Atlantic oyster landings fell sharply in
the late 1980's, and Chesapeake Bay stocks are considered severely
depleted. After peaking in the 1970's, Pacific shrimp landings fell
off in the 1980's, primarily because of reduced Alaska landings.
Dungeness and blue crab landings, though cyclical, appear to have
withstood harvesting pressures well through the 40-year period
examined.
	Because these species frequent nearshore waters, they are not
included in Federal fishery management plans; some are managed
under regional, state, and/or local authority. Typically, size
limits are used to protect molluscan and crustacean resources from
overutilization, whereas gear restrictions are the most common
management measures used for the finfishes in this group. Area
closures, bag limits, and catch quotas are also employed,
particularly for shellfish. Interstate Fishery Management
Commission plans have been developed for such Chesapeake Bay
species as the oyster and blue crab to try to achieve consistent
management between states. Some states, notably Florida and
California, have prohibited all commercial harvest of certain
species by designating them as gamefishes.
	It is difficult to assess the status of these stocks throughout
their ranges because they are under varied management and data
collection systems; though individual states may collect data and
assess stocks of several of these species, comprehensive
assessments are scarce. Many of the species in Table 21-1 are
probably overexploited, at least in part of their ranges, as with
the Chesapeake Bay oyster. Others, like many of the herrings, are
difficult to assess because the data on abundance and stock
structure are sparse, dispersed, or nonexistent. Stock levels of
many of these species are below their historical averages. Whereas
relatively good biological data exist for species such as oysters
and blue crabs, they are incomplete for many other species in this
unit.
	The recent annual yield of the species in this unit is
conservatively estimated at more than 221,000 t. Table 21-1
presents the best data available, though the yields are probably
low for many species because separate landings data are not always
reported (many of the baitfishes are lumped into other categories,
for example). Furthermore, data on sport catches are not available
for many of these species, particularly the invertebrates.
Recreational aspects of some of these fisheries are very large;
Chesapeake Bay sport crabbers alone caught an estimated 19,000 t of
blue crabs in 1983 and 9,800 t in 1988, or 44% and 32.1% of the
total harvests, respectively. Some species, such as tarpon and
bonefish, are sought primarily for sport and are usually released
alive; consequently, few or no landings data for them are reported
even though they provide significant local and regional economic
benefits.

ISSUES

Habitat Concerns

	Because of their reliance on nearshore habitats (i.e. estuaries,
reefs, mangroves, etc.) species in this group are particularly
susceptible to habitat loss, pollution, changes in freshwater
flows, siltation, and other environmental problems. Striped bass
have been hurt by habitat degradation and salinity changes in the
San Francisco Bay estuary; Chesapeake Bay species, such as river
herrings and hickory shad, have declined drastically in recent
years due to pollution, waterflow changes and habitat degradation;
and Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico oyster and hard clam harvests
have been severely reduced by pollution, disease, salinity changes,
and habitat losses. More than half of the Nation's original acreage
of coastal wetland marshes have disappeared, and dramatic declines
in seagrass beds have occurred. Louisiana alone loses an estimated
35,200 acres of coastal wetlands habitat each year. 
	Because many shellfish fisheries are close to large population
areas, the likelihood of pollution problems is high; fishing
closures due to shellfish bed contamination cause large economic
losses each year. In addition to direct pollution impacts,
excessive nutrient loads may increase toxic plankton blooms that
cause red tides and paralytic shellfish poisoning. Mosquito control
spraying near populated areas, such as in southern Florida, may
result in death of juvenile fishes in important nursery areas.
	Environmental stresses also make fish more susceptible to diseases
and parasites, either killing them outright or making them
difficult or impossible to market. The diseases MSX and  dermo 
have destroyed millions of bushels of oysters in Delaware and
Chesapeake Bays since 1958, and they spread in the late 1980's to
coastal North Carolina where similar devastation has occurred.

Management Concerns

	Overharvesting has been at least partially responsible for
depleting such species as Pacific razor clams, Pismo clams,
abalones, oysters, and snook. Marine mammals also feed on some of
these species and may compete with fishermen; for example, sea
otters on the Pacific coast have depleted abalone and sea urchin
stocks in parts of California.