The whole thing is so ridiculous as to be embarrassing to 

 speak about. How the rest of you many stand, you can say. 

 But for me, the course is clear. The thing to do is use some 

 initiative, energy, and common sense and get out on the high 

 seas with the rest and compete. 



One of the more amusing aspects of this is that if we attempt 

 to move our fishery control boundaries out to sea, and are suc- 

 cessful, without modernizing our state laws regulating our 

 fisheries, we will only drag our self-imposed handicaps further 

 out to sea with us and be no better off in the end. 



Summary 



In closing, these remarks may be summed up as follows: 



1 ) In order to successfully compete in the American good 

 market, fishery products must be made more desirable, must be 

 more quickly adapted to changing eating customs, and be made 

 cheaper in cost. 



2 ) To do this the cost per ton of producing the raw material 

 must be reduced by the application of science and technology to 

 the fishing process (see Schaefer: Oceanography and the 

 Marine Fisheries). 



3) To do this, the archaic systems of state law regulating 

 the fisheries require to be examined state by state and over- 

 hauled so as to permit the rational and efficient harvesting of 

 ocean resources. The adoption of S.J. Res. 29 (Magnuson 

 and others) by this Congress would begin this process. 



4 ) To do this, accommodations must be made at the state 

 level between the recreation industry and the food industry 

 over the use of the various resources. 



5 ) This can scarcely be done until a decision is made at state 

 level to favor efficient fishermen over inefficient fishermen, or 

 at least to give them an even break legislatively. 



6) None of these things seem likely to occur until state 

 fishery laboratories are put on such a footing that they can 

 provide competent scientific advice at the state level for the use 

 of state fishery officials, legislators, sportsmen's and commercial 

 fishermen's representatives, and the general public. While this 

 requires many things, money is the one thing that it must have 

 and Public Law 88-309 of the last Congress is a proper vehicle 

 for providing it. 



7 ) This process would be much enhanced if academic 

 fisheries institutions in the state universities had access to fund- 

 ing from the National Ocean Program budget on the same 

 scale as do the academic oceanography institutions. Moves 

 by Senators to put money in the FY 1966 budget to start this 

 process should be applauded and urged. 



8) The organization of ocean research in the Federal Gov- 

 ernment is in disarray and for that reason ocean-oriented activ- 

 ity by government and industry languishes. Several bills 

 presently before the Congress are aimed at improving this situa- 

 tion and among the most practical of them are S. 944 (Mag- 

 nuson and others) and S. 1091 (Bartlett and others). It is to 

 be hoped that they will be combined and adopted by this 

 Congress. 



9 ) There really is no National Ocean Program or Budget. 

 Ocean activities are conducted by 5 Departments, 3 Independ- 



ent Agencies, and 22 operating Bureaus and Offices in the Exec- 

 utive Branch of the Federal government. They report to 

 32 substantive and appropriation committees and subcommit- 

 tees of the Congress. The Interagency Committee on Oceanog- 

 raphy is not statutorily authorized to deal effectively with this 

 mess, and the Congress is not organized effectively to receive its 

 product if it were. 



10) Aside from the reorganization of ocean affairs in the 

 Federal Government as envisioned by Senator Magnuson, 

 Bartlett, and others, there requires to be created in the executive 

 a civilian Department of the Ocean with a Secretary having 

 Cabinet rank. To this, as a minimum, should be transferred : 

 U.S. Maritime Administration, U.S. Weather Bureau, 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, U.S. Coast Guard, 

 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, National Oceano- 

 graphic Data Center, Coastal Engineering Research 

 Center, and the Sea-Air Interaction Laboratory. 

 1 1 ) Segments of the United States fishing industry and their 

 representatives should quit bellyaching about needing protec- 

 tion from foreign fishermen, pull up their socks, wipe their noses, 

 and get out on the high seas and compete with all hands in the 

 rational use of the ocean's bounty under the terms of the 1958 

 Convention on Fishing and the Conservation of the Living 

 Resources of the Sea. They will be helped in doing this if 

 some of the other suggestions made above are followed. 



The Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy 

 of Sciences-National Research Council in a recent publication 

 on "Economic Benefits from Oceanographic Research" has 

 estimated that rational development of the U.S. domestic 

 fisheries could result in doubling production in the next 10 to 

 15 years, and that the continuing accelerated growth of our dis- 

 tant water and overseas fisheries could increase their production 

 fourfold within the next decade. Oceanographic research 

 is one of the essential elements in realizing these potential de- 

 velopments. My purpose here is to discuss some of the ways 

 in which oceanography is useful in increasing the harvest of 

 the living resources of the sea. 



By "oceanography," I mean the study and understanding 

 of the ocean, its contents, and its boundaries, including the 

 effects of atmospheric processes exerted on the ocean at the 

 air-sea boundary. Fisheries oceanography is concerned with 

 all the aspects of the ocean, its boundaries and its contents which 

 affect the abundance, location, and behavior of the harvestable 

 living resources. It thus comprehends not only the topog- 

 raphy of the ocean basins; the currents, upwellings, and other 

 motions of the ocean; the distribution of temperature, salinity 

 and other physical and chemical properties; but also the abun- 

 dance, rates of production, behavior, and interrelationships of 

 the populations of the living elements. It includes much of 

 what is often called fishery biology, fishing ecology, and fishing 

 exploration. The fishery oceanographer is particularly con- 

 cerned with the ocean conditions that bring about economi- 

 cally catchable fish concentrations; how the locations and 

 sizes of fish populations vary with changing conditions in the 

 sea; and those aspects of fish behavior that can be exploited 

 to reduce the costs of catching the fish. 



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