Records of pilchard spawning in the English Channel

Abstract

The pilchard, Clupea pilchardus Walbaum, is known to spawn in summer in the southern North Sea in the neighbourhood of the Sandettié Bank (Buchanan-Wollaston, 1911; Furnestin, 1939a, 1945) and in the eastern English Channel off Beachy Head (Furnestin, 1939a, 1945). Furnestin (1939b, 1945) concludes from these records that spawning is in all probability continuous throughout the Channel from the southern North Sea to the Celtic Sea. There appear, however, to be no previous references to pilchard spawning in the central part of the English Channel. The following records from the area are of interest therefore, and provide confirmation of Furnestin’s conclusion.