130 E 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 2 



ncrw i60°w 



60^ 



55°N 



5(fN 



45*^ 



40°N 



35°N 



31,150 



14,000 



3,300 



2,500 



4,300 



total 105,000 



I - Mothership fishery 

 2-Lond-bQsed driff-net fishery 

 3-Land-bosed longline fishery 



4-Land-based drift-nef fishery (Japon Sea) 

 5-Lond-bosed longline fishery (Japan Sea) 

 Other-Very small drift netters 



Figure 3. — Allocation of high seas salmon fishing grounds, 1969 (from Suisan-sha, 1970), 



waters off northern Japan and Sakhalin, Kam- 

 chatka (particularly the west coast) , the eastern 

 Bering Sea, and the east Aleutian-Kodiak area. 

 Land-based crab fishing for manufacturing 

 canned crab dates from 1905; it expanded from 

 Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the northern Kuriles. 

 Exploratory attempts for fishing with mother- 

 ships began in the 1910's along the west coast 

 of Kamchatka, and commercial fishing of this 

 type started in 1921. Stimulated by growing 

 international markets for canned crab, the fish- 

 ery expanded rapidly and the government, as 

 usual, issued king crab mothership fishery reg- 

 ulations in 1923. The number of motherships 

 was limited to 18 in 1927. Attempts were also 

 made to develop crab resources along the east 

 coast of Kamchatka without much success. The 

 mothership crab fishery in Bristol Bay began in 

 1930 and continued until 1939 (no fishing in 

 1931). It never developed to a major fishery 

 before World War II, only one mothership oper- 

 ating in most years. Crab fishing from the 

 Russian territory was first conducted in con- 

 nection with salmon fishing, but it was in 1920 



that an oflficial arrangement was made between 

 the Russian and Japanese governments to per- 

 mit Japanese crab fishing from the Russian ter- 

 ritory (west coast of Kamchatka) under Rus- 

 sian regulations. (The Japanese salmon and 

 crab fisheries from the Russian territory were 

 practically monopolized by one company, Ni- 

 chiro.) Both mothership crab fishing and land- 

 based fishing employed tangle nets; motherships 

 carried small powered boats called "kawasaki- 

 sen" to do the fishing and were equipped with 

 canning lines to process crabs aboard. 



As in the case of the salmon mothership fish- 

 ery, the Japanese government issued its policies 

 on the resumption of the Bristol Bay crab moth- 

 ership fishery prior to the entering into force of 

 the peace treaty in 1952. Because of political 

 repercussions from the United States, no fishing 

 was authorized in that year, and only one moth- 

 ership was licensed for 1953 as a joint operation 

 by the three biggest fishing companies, Taiyo, 

 Nippon Suisan, and Nichiro, Specific regula- 

 tions were issued to limit the number of deck- 

 loaded boats as well as self-navigating fishing 



240 



