Fish Desert Cornish Coasts

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 316, 29 March 1928, Page 8

Fish Desert Cornish Coasts

Ruined Industry Cornish fisheries are in a bad way. More boats than ever are tor sale, but despite the little that is asked Tor them and their nets and gear there are no purchasers. For the eleventh year in succession the pilchard harvest failed in 1927. Mot a single shoal of this characteristically Cornish fish, which used to be the backbone of the county’s fisheries, was sighted last year by the seiners, fishermen with large vertical nets. Mackerel, which used with unfailing regularity to come near inshore every spring in big shoals, are now, year after year, keeping out in deep Atlantic waters almost as far from Land’s End as the Scillies. The North Cornish coast’s landings of shell-fish in 1927 were the smallest in the memory of this generation, though those of South Cornwall were rather above the poor average of recent years. The autumn herring season of North Cornwall, which used to provide a large part of the income of the flsherfolk of St. Ives, Newquay, Padstow and the coastal villages, was the worst ever known. The season’s catch of one boat was—6oo herrings! The fewest boats for several years put out from Newquay. The plight of the fishermen is aggravated by the fact that motors in the boats make the fishing cost three times as much as in pre-war days, when sails alone were carried.