E 180° 170° 160° 150° 140° 130° 120° W 



Figure 2. — Geographic expansion of fishing grounds of 

 American Samoa-based vessels, 1954-65. 



1964 (fig. 3). The 105-vessel fleet operating during 

 the last quarter in 1965 liad Q2 vessels from Japan. 

 30 from tlie Republic of Korea, and 13 from the Re- 

 public of China. 



Figure 3. — Number of vessels in the American Samoa- 

 based longline fishery, 1954-<>5. 



SPECIES COMPOSITION OF THE LANDINGS 



Albacore commands the highest price at the can- 

 nery and is, consequently, fished for selectively 

 by the fleet. This selection occurs both by the choos- 

 ing of areas in which albacore are most plenti- 

 ful instead of areas with the greatest combined 

 species catch and (on occasion) by the discarding 

 of other species caught to conserve storage room 

 for moi-e albacore. Thus, the all^acore catch alone is 

 delivered in its entirety to the canneiy. 



Yellowfin tuna constitutes the second most im- 

 portant si>ecies delivered to the canneries, but 

 makes up only about 15 percent of the weight of 

 fish landed. Other species taken by the fishery in- 

 clude the bigeye tuna {T. oiesm). southern blue- 

 fin tuna (T. maccoyii), skipjack tuna {Katsw- 

 wonus pelamis), wahoo {Acanthocybmm, solan- 

 dn), and various billfishes, sharks, and other 

 pelagic species. Because catches that are not kept 

 for delivery are often not recorded, no reliable 

 data are available on the apparent abundance of 

 species other tlian the albacore. 



ANNUAL AND SEASONAL LANDINGS OF 

 ALBACORE ' 



Tiie albacore landings by the American Samoa- 

 based fleet have gradually increased from 338 met- 

 ric tons in 1954 to 15,588 metric tons in 1965 (fig. 

 4). The upward trend was broken in 1961 and 

 1964, when landings smaller than those of the pre- 



' Catch statistics in this report are based on dates of capture 

 and may not agree with figures previously reported from this 

 fishery, which were based on dates of delivery. 



50 



U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



