• development of a multipurpose, small 

 scale mid-water trawl; and 



. more efficient equipment to freeze, han- 

 dle, and store fish onboard fishing 

 vessels. 



Although more than one-third of the fisher- 

 men responding expressed an interest in 

 modernizing equipment and using electronics 

 onboard their vessels, many fishermen 

 emphasized that the job could better be done 

 by private industry than Government. 



However, Government assistance was 

 strongly advocated for work in several areas 

 of more public concern, such as: 



. habitat improvement; 



• location of fish; 



. identifying migration patterns of fish; 



• improving dissemination of weather and 

 water-surface temperature data to fisher- 

 men; 



• finding solutions to localized pollution 

 problems; 



. stressing the need for conservation; and 



• improvement of stock assessment infor- 

 mation. 



OTA also asked the Pacific fishermen how 

 they presently receive technical information 

 and how useful that information is to them. 

 The major source of information was the Sea 

 Grant program through an information 

 system similar to the Agricultural Extension 

 Service. Other sources of information were in- 

 dividual State programs or State universities 

 and fishermen's publications. Information 

 from these sources reached about two-thirds 

 of those surveyed, but only slightly more than 

 half of the respondents considered the infor- 

 mation useful (see figure 26). 



^z7ym^—!T7?sr;w:'5iTss 



Figure 26 



Fishermen's Sources of Information 



1 



The National Marine Fisheries Service and 

 some industry sources also provide informa- 

 tion, but only 40 percent of the respondents 

 found it useful. 



A small group of fishermen got their infor- 

 mation only from other fishermen, but such 

 information had the highest reliability rating 

 of any of the sources of information men- 

 tioned. 



Since the Federal Government through 

 NMFS and Sea Grant already has some struc- 

 ture for disseminating information to fisher- 

 men, it appears likely that this structure could 

 be expanded and improved to reach a larger 

 segment of the fishing population. It should 

 provide more information from a variety of 

 sources, including trusted segments of the 

 fishing industry itself. Such an information 



102 



