Henry Macdonald Kyle (1872–1951) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

and

fisheries scientist Fisheries science is the academic discipline of managing and understanding fisheries. It is a multidisciplinary science, which draws on the disciplines of limnology, oceanography, freshwater biology, marine biology, meteorology, conservation, ...

. Kyle graduated from

St Andrews University The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, t ...

where he was a protégé of William Carmichael McIntosh. In 1903 he was appointed as Biological Secretary to the

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES; , ''CIEM'') is a regional fishery advisory body and the world's oldest intergovernmental science organization. ICES is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, where its multinational s ...

(ICES), based in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

. He was an expert on

flatfish A flatfish is a member of the Ray-finned fish, ray-finned demersal fish Order (biology), suborder Pleuronectoidei, also called the Heterosomata. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the head, one or the other migrating through or around ...

, especially

plaice Plaice is a common name for a group of flatfish that comprises four species: the European, American, Alaskan and scale-eye plaice. Commercially, the most important plaice is the European. The principal commercial flatfish in Europe, it is ...

, and worked with

Walter Garstang Walter Garstang Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, FZS (9 February 1868 – 23 February 1949), a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds, was one of the ...

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

. Later he collaborated extensively with

Ernst Ehrenbaum Ernst M. E. Ehrenbaum (20 December 1861 – 6 March 1942) was a German biologist (especially fishes) and oceanographer. Biography Ehrenbaum was born in Perleberg, Province of Brandenburg, Prussia. He studied natural sciences at the universities ...

of the Museum of Natural History in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. He made important contributions to fisheries science and produced definitive works which were among the first scientific studies to address the issue of overfishing. It is known that in the late 1920s and early 1930s he became alienated from his wife and children, referring to himself in letters as an outcast. He was, however, reconciled to at least one of his sisters later in life. His later life is almost unknown except that he died in 1951 in Scotland. He was an accomplished linguist who translated the works of many Danish and German fisheries scientists and ichthyologists into English. His ''magnum opus'' was a book on the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland which was published in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

. An earlier book, ''"The biology of fishes"'', was published in English, but it was dedicated to Ehrenbaum. Kyle appeared to find living in Germany more conducive to his work and he was often assumed to have been a German rather than a Scot. Abstract. Kyle was one of the founders of the study of the bioeconomics of fishing and his argument that fish stocks were outside the scope of normal economics because economics are not subject to "natural law" was pioneering and remains generally accepted.

Publications

A selection of some of the published works by Kyle is set out below: *''On the Presence of Nasal Secretory Sacs and a Nasopharyngeal communication in Teleostei with an especial reference to Cynoglossus semilaevis'' Gthr. J Linn Soc Zool 27:541–. 556, 1900 *''Bulletin statistique des pêches maritimes des pays du nord et de l'ouest de l'Europe'' International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Copenhagen 1906 *''Flat-fishes (Heterosomata)'' Rep. Danish Oceanogr. Exped. 1908-10 2(A1 ): 150 pp, 4 plates. 1908 *''The biology of fishes'' 1926 *''Die Seefischerei von Grossbritannien und Irland'' 1929 *''Die Statistik der Seefischerei Nord-Europas nebst Anhang: Die Überfischungsfrage'' 1928

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald Kyle Scottish ichthyologists Scottish zoologists 1872 births 1951 deaths Alumni of the University of St Andrews