PART VIII — AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS 



Acquisition of Needed Information 



Existing federal, state, and private 

 agencies are fully capable of gather- 

 ing and interpreting all the technical 

 data that may be pertinent to an 

 understanding of fisheries problems 

 as related to the estuarine features 

 of Puget Sound. The accumulation 

 of certain types of basic data can 

 proceed at once; for example, water 

 circulation, life history and ecological 

 studies of selected fish and shellfish, 

 and tolerance of estuarine organisms 

 (including ones at any level of the 

 food chain) to induced environmental 

 changes. But the full range of needed 

 information cannot be anticipated un- 



til at least a broad definition of the 

 desired goals has been achieved. Pub- 

 lic participation in the selection of 

 goals that are practical for the present 

 and future management of the Puget 

 Sound estuary will necessitate clarifi- 

 cation of the alternative uses of the 

 estuary that are available and their 

 resulting effect on the commercial 

 and recreational fisheries in Puget 

 Sound. Identification of alternative 

 uses of the Puget Sound estuary be- 

 comes, therefore, an immediate and 

 pressing need. 



Once the needed information for 

 achieving desired goals is at hand, the 

 implementation of recommended ac- 



tions might well involve federal, state, 

 local, private, and industrial groups. 

 Communication between the involved 

 agencies and groups is indispensable. 

 Concerted action or unified jurisdic- 

 tional authority must be established 

 in order to assure appropriate execu- 

 tion of an adopted plan. A variety 

 of formal and informal schemes are 

 presently used to achieve at least 

 partial coordination between agencies 

 with overlapping authority and re- 

 sponsibilities relating to Puget Sound. 

 A mechanism to guarantee consulta- 

 tion between agencies is needed, as 

 well as a method to provide for reg- 

 ulatory actions that are consistent 

 with respect to accepted objectives. 



Prospects for Aquaculture 



As a result of the rapid increase 

 of interest in aquaculture, aquatic 

 biologists and fishery biologists who 

 are familiar with the inshore areas 

 of the oceans have been besieged 

 with questions from industrialists. 

 These questions most often concern 

 the costs of farming and the profit 

 to be realized. 



Major Considerations 



There are no simple answers, for 

 the factors involved are more com- 

 plex than they might at first appear 

 to be. A fishery biologist would need 

 to possess the knowledge and skills 

 of a variety of specialists to provide 

 adequate answers. For instance, fish- 

 ery biologists are rarely marketing 

 specialists. They have traditionally 

 been trained to manage populations 

 of fish and shellfish from the stand- 

 point of providing a maximum sus- 

 tainable yield in terms of numbers of 

 fish or weight of fish from a partic- 

 ular exploited stock. Only in recent 

 years have fishery economists pointed 

 out that a vital aspect of managing 

 fisheries is the economic yield. Con- 

 sidering costs to harvest and market 



value, fishery economists ask at what 

 level of fishing can the maximum 

 economic yield to the fishery be 

 realized. 



To minimize costs it is often nec- 

 essary to limit fishing effort, since 

 harvesting is carried out by inefficient 

 means because of restrictions on ef- 

 ficient gear or requirements of more 

 vessels and men than are needed to 

 harvest the crop. Information neces- 

 sary to determine the optimum eco- 

 nomic level of harvesting stocks from 

 many fisheries is still unavailable. 



The biologist is generally ill-pre- 

 pared to present the type of infor- 

 mation that industry is requesting 

 for aquaculture. Unfortunately, the 

 answer is very complicated, involving 

 a host of variables. 



Species Selection — There are ques- 

 tions the biologist is well qualified 

 to answer, however, such as the feas- 

 ibility of farming a certain few spe- 

 cies. If he is asked about shrimp, 

 for example, he can point out the 

 extent of the available biological 

 knowledge on this species and where 

 difficulties may arise that will be 



costly to the investors. If asked about 

 other species (for example, spiny lob- 

 ster or the common pompano), he 

 must reply that no one has reared 

 these animals from eggs to adults and 

 that a lot of basic research must be 

 done before that species will be suit- 

 able for farming from a biological 

 standpoint, which is, in turn, many 

 steps and years away from farming at 

 any economically profitable level. 

 Suppose, for example, that larval life 

 of the spiny lobster turns out to last 

 five or six months; then the cost of 

 rearing the lobster through these 

 stages can be so high as to be un- 

 profitable. 



Furthermore, biological research, 

 like everything else today, is ex- 

 tremely expensive. To obtain what 

 might seem to be answers to simple, 

 straightforward biological questions 

 can be very costly, and even then 

 the answers obtained may pertain 

 only to a certain set of conditions 

 tested in the experiments; under an- 

 other set of circumstances, the biol- 

 ogist might find quite different results 

 from his research. 



Location — In addition to the selec- 

 tion of a farmable species, potential 



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