UNIQUE CHARACTER 29 



Canada and the United States at the mouths of the rivers to which 

 they return to spawn. Lastly, the management of the stocks toward 

 the goal of maximum sustained yield is most efficiently done at or 

 near the mouths of the spawning streams. At this point, the fish 

 begin to sort themselves out into separate and independent stocks, 

 and it is possible to set rational limits on the numbers that are 

 caught entering each stream. When fishing takes place on the high 

 seas this type of control is impossible. 



Concentration of salmon into restricted areas enroute to their 

 spa waning streams makes them particularly vulnerable to fishing. 

 Theoretically, the salmon could be fished by a relatively small num- 

 ber of traps located at strategic points near the spa^vning streams. 

 This type of fishing ^vould provide maximum efficiency and mini- 

 minn costs, so that essentially the maximum sustained yield of 

 salmon is virtually the same as maximum economic yield. This 

 relationship is not, in fact, altered by law^s which prohibit such 

 efficient fishing in favor of methods ^vhich guarantee participation 

 of more fishermen. 



In the case of halibut some of the same arguments apply; others 

 do not. (The question of whether the Bering Sea halibut are being 

 fully utilized wall be discussed later.) Where a fishery such as the 

 halibut is being fully utilized it is obvious that participation in it 

 by additional fishermen from another coimtry ^vill not add to the 

 total w^orld food supply; it ^vill only require that the total catch be 

 divided among a greater niunber of fishermen and vessels. As pointed 

 out by McDougal and Burke the entry of more fishermen a\ ill depress 

 the economic condition of the fishermen of the first state. Also, the 

 experience of the halibut and salmon commissions indicates that 

 uncontrolled entry probably precludes successful management. In 

 the case of the halibut, the fact that it has been fished exclusively by 

 the United States and Canada, and that these coinitries have kno^vn 

 their financial expenditures and self-imposed restraints woidd not 

 be capitalized on by others, has probably been the most important 

 factor in the development of extensive scientific data concerning the 

 fishery, and in bringing about its reconstruction after the low yields 

 of the 1920's. As the certainty of this restricted access decreases, there 

 is an understandable decrease in the incentive to expend additional 

 money, or impose further self-restraints, tow^ard continued manage- 

 ment. Then, also, there are other fishery stocks available in the 



