A decrease in the quantity of harmful animals by technical, 

 biologic, chemical or other methods would allow the food resources 

 available to commercial species to be increased by many times, thereby 

 facilitating an increase in their population and production. Purposeful 

 catching of predators might significantly increase the catch of more 

 peaceful fish. Specialized intensive fishing for a single species (at 

 times, even a species with no great food value) might open the way for 

 an increase in the population for another species, the catch of which we 

 would like to increase. The current scales of commercial effort and the 

 nature of equipment used for fishing can allow almost complete 

 elimination of a population. Transplantation of juveniles of commercial 

 species to more favorable areas for their further growth can improve the 

 utilization of the food base and yield thousands of tons of additional 

 fish production. Acclimatization of food and commercial species also 

 promises to be one method of improving the qualitative composition of 

 the fauna and increasing the fish productivity of the ocean. Large 

 areas of the shelf regions of the Barents Sea, Bering Sea, Sea of 

 Okhotsk and other seas are covered throughout the year by waters of low 

 temperature, and are far from the wintering areas of commercial 

 species. They contain over 100 million tons of edible benthos, 

 practically unutilized by fish. Transplantation of cold-loving 

 benthophagous fish into these areas might lead to the inclusion of 

 another, significant food base in the process of creation of fish 

 production. The great successes of marine "fish husbandry" indicate 

 that the future for underwater farms, breeding species utilizing the 

 natural food base, is quite promising. 



We should emphasize once more the special significance of the 

 creation of truly efficient oceanic fish farming for the most effective 

 utilization of the biologic resources of the ocean and achievement of 

 the maximum, most stable catch. It should be recalled that the fishing 

 conducted to date in the World Ocean is far from efficient. We are 

 seeing cases at the present, for example, of significant changes in the 

 age composition of stocks under the influence of fishing, leading to a 

 reduction in the area of distribution, underutilization of the food base 

 and, thereby, significant reduction in reserves. This is particularly 

 true of cod in the Arctic-Morwegian area, Atlantic and Pacific sea perch 

 and many other species. The sharp decline in the population of whales 

 in the Antarctic has led to underutilization of their food resources 

 (krill). Naturally, before we take steps to improve the biologic 

 processes in the ocean, we must develop a plan for efficient utilization 

 of the biologic resources available with particular caution, carefully 

 considering the peculiarities of these processes. 



All of this requires expansion and deepening of our knowledge 

 concerning the regularities controlling these processes, the primary 

 links in the food chain, leading to the final goal--fish productivity, 

 the energy balance and energy losses during development of biologic 

 processes and transformation of energy, etc. 



The period of prospecting and study of the biologic resources of 

 the World Ocean is now coming to an end; the time has come to begin the 

 period of creation of oceanic fish farming; the problem of controlling 



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