Social Information 



which the Regional Councils would wish to 

 contract outside the Federal Government for 

 studies. Since only approximately eight-tenths 

 of 1 percent of the NMFS personnel are 

 classified as economists, NMFS has indicated 

 plans to add economics and statistics staffs to 

 each of the four regional Fisheries Research 

 Centers. This would to some extent alleviate 

 the shortage which exists. There are caveats, 

 however. The plan to create these staffs has 

 not been implemented. Concurrent with this, 

 the economic analysis capabilities of NMFS 

 have almost disappeared with the demise of 

 the EMRD. Furthermore, several economists 

 in the central office have left NMFS. 



Even if the additions are made, it is ques- 

 tionable whether these regional staffs will 

 have the time or direction to address 

 economic issues from the national perspective 

 which will be necessary in reviewing manage- 

 ment plans. Therefore, although such regional 

 economics staffs are desirable, they are not a 

 substitute for a central economic research and 

 planning capability. 



To date, among social scientists only the 

 economists have begun to build up a body of 

 data and theory which is applicable to fish- 

 eries management. Other kinds of social scien- 

 tists on the whole have not addressed fisheries 

 problems in the United States. Social data on 

 fishermen and the communities in which they 

 live are almost conspicuously absent from the 

 literature except for a small body of informa- 

 tion on sociocultural systems of modern fish- 

 ing communities in the United States and 

 other industrialized nations. These data have 

 been developed by anthropologists. Anthro- 

 pologists have been attracted to fishing largely 

 because of a growing interest in maritime 

 communities and because traditional, rural 

 fishing communities can be studied with the 

 same sets of conceptual tools which 

 anthropologists have developed for studying 

 small, traditional societies in other parts of the 

 world. 81 



Anthropologists who are now interested, 

 prepared, and trained to deal with the social, 

 cultural, and historical dimension of fisheries 

 management could form the core of 

 researchers who gather data on fishing 

 cultures that will be required by fisheries 

 managers. Historians might also be used for 

 social data collection while other researchers 

 with experience or interest in fisheries 

 management are moving into this new field. 



Extended jurisdiction and fisheries manage- 

 ment will undoubtedly affect everything from 

 fishing technology, crew size, catches, income 

 levels, and employment levels, to migration 

 rates, relative population of communities, and 

 social problems such as the level of alcohol- 

 ism, delinquency, and crime. Regional Coun- 

 cils will need to know the effect of decisions 

 made under Public Law 94-265 in order to 

 make sensible alterations in fisheries regula- 

 tions as conditions continue to change. 



88 



