I. INTRODUCTION 



Many people around the world who have studied trends in fish 

 populations and who have been concerned with fisheries conservation 

 have become alarmed at man's tendency to destroy the fish stocks. 

 Every stock can produce a maximum sustained yield, but when this 

 is temporarily exceeded, the future generations of fish and men must 

 suffer. As the men fish harder and harder, the fish stock can produce 

 less and less because we have no way of augmenting the stock, but 

 must harvest merely what God has provided. 



Michael Graham, who was long the director of the principal 

 fisheries laboratory in Great Britain, stated his "Great Law of Fish- 

 ing."* He stated this simply as "fisheries that are unlimited become 

 unprofitable" and he stated further that as the fishing effort increases 

 the fisheries stay unprofitable and the fish stocks tend to die out. A 

 series of studies by professional economists in recent years reinforces 

 this conclusion. Fisheries with free entry invariably produce low 

 incomes and poor efficiency, and there is no automatic tendency to 

 correct these undesirable results. 



This problem of excess fishing effort has plagued fishermen and 

 those concerned with the conservation of fish in Washington for 

 many years. It has recently become a much more urgent problem as 

 people realized that they had had years of near-record salmon pro- 

 duction that were yielding little if any profit to the salmon fishermen. 

 The runs of sockeye salmon have been increased to near-record sizes, 

 yet there has been no increase in benefits to the fishermen, the pro- 

 cessors, or the public. 



