ROYCE: EDUCATION OF FISHERY SCIENTISTS 



Table 1. — Breakdown of respondents from Pacific Fishery Biologists by types of pro- 

 fessional activities and fishery, highest degree attained, major subject, employer, and 

 institution of origin/ 



1 Nonresponses and certain minor categories have been omitted. 



3 The respondents who indicated a division of duties of 60-40 or 50-50 ore included in two categories. 



* The respondents who indicated a division between the two fisheries of 50-50 hove been omitted. 



Another separation of functions is between 

 investigative and decision making activities. It 

 may be assumed that research is predominantly 

 investigative, administration is predominantly 

 decision making, and management is both inves- 

 tigative and decision making. 



In actual practice it appears that a majority 

 of the fishery scientists in western North Amer- 

 ica have no more than a baccalaureate and are 

 engaged in fishery management and administra- 

 tion. The responses (324) to a recent question- 

 naire to members of Pacific Fishery Biologists 

 (PFB) indicated that 56% had only a baccalau- 

 reate degree, 26% had added only a master, and 

 17% had a doctorate. When queried about their 

 activities 36% of the respondents said they were 

 engaged in fishery research for 40 % or more of 

 their time, 31% in fishery management, 29% in 

 fishery administration, 6%^ in teaching, and 10% 

 in other activities, most of which were water 

 management. (Some said they were engaged 

 for 40% or more of their time in each of two 



activities and hence were counted twice in the 

 above breakdown.) 



It should be noted that the overall projections 

 of supply vs. demand for Ph.D.'s indicate an 

 oversupply for the needs of basic research and 

 teaching and an expectation by many of a search 

 for employment elsewhere (Cartter, 1971 ; Ter- 

 man, 1971). The natural resource agencies and 

 offices should expect an infliux of Ph.D.'s trained 

 in other areas during the 1970's. 



The role of a person with a terminal master 

 degree appears to be primarily in research and 

 administration. A higher proportion of the 

 members of PFB with a master degree than of 

 those with either a baccalaureate or doctorate 

 were engaged in administration, and the propor- 

 tion of them that were engaged in research was 

 nearly as high as the proportion of those with 

 a doctorate so engaged. The master's training 

 provides either the breadth of education that 

 gives a person a wide choice of jobs or a special 

 education for a particular job. It appears to be 



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