The Fisheries and the InterNational Council ¹

Abstract

I. IN former communications² it was shown how insignificant is the influence of man in affecting the plants, such as seaweeds and diatoms, abounding in the sea, and how little he can influence the lower marine animals, from microscopic elementary forms, through sponges, zoophytes, starfishes, annelids, shellfishes, and cuttlefishes, up to fishes. It was further demonstrated in 1898 that the closure of the experimental areas (Forth, St. Andrews Bay, and Aberdeen Bay) had not affected the food-fishes, either as regards increase or diminution in numbers or size. Now it may be asked: Where have the melancholy anticipations of the pessimists been demonstrated; where has the serious diminution of any food-fish occurred; and where have the principles enunciated in “The Resources of the Sea” been traversed by the International Fisheries Council, the most extensive, and certainlv the most expensive, combination of fisheries authorities the world has seen, which owed its existence to opinions (viz. those of the impoverishment theory)diametrically opposed to those of “The Resources of the Sea”.