THE RESOURCES AND THE PROBLEMS 



In 1966, the latest year for which publislied sta- 

 tistics are available, the California fish industry used as 

 its raw material just over a quarter of a million metric 

 tons of fish and invertebrates of about 50 species worth 

 $87 million. Of this total. 60.000 tons, valued at $32 

 million, were cauglit by foreign fishing vessels and trans- 

 shipped to California where it was used by the California 

 processing plants; these imports represent 22 percent of 

 the weiglit and 37 percent of the value of the raw mate- 

 rial used by the industry. 



The 1966 statistics represented the culmination of 

 along trend of declining landings, which by this time had 

 fallen to less than a third of their 1939 figure, and were 

 offset, for tuna, by an increased dependence on the 

 catches of foreign fishing vessels. In 1939, the total 

 catch of the California fleet was more than three- 

 quarters of a million metric tons, valued at $18 million, 

 supplemented by only about 3,000 tons purchased from 

 foreign fishing fleets. 



This decline, in brief, is the basis of the problems 

 facing the California fish industry and its fishing tleet. 

 Attributable to no single cause, the failure to participate 

 in the generally rising prosperity of the California econ- 

 omy can be blamed on unwisely heavy fishing of some 



resources, on natural changes in resource abundance due 

 to climatic trends, and on increasing foreign competition 

 in the tuna fisheries and in the fish meal and oil markets. 



To understand more clearly what has happened in 

 the California fisheries, we need to compare in more de- 

 tail the years 1939 and 1966; in each year, five elements 

 of the fishery can be recognized: tuna, salmon, industrial 

 fish, fresh fish, and invertebrates. 



Tuna landings by 1 966 had increased by only about 

 one-third over the 1939 landings, while the proportion 

 formed by each of the species remained about the same: 

 yellowfin tuna (Tfiunnus albacares) dominated in 1966, 

 as in 1939. Althougli only 3,178 tons were purchased 

 from abroad by the canners in 1939, this component had 

 risen to a total of 60,832 tons in 1966; these imports 

 formed 45 percent of the value of the raw material 

 used by the tuna processors, compared with only 5 per- 

 cent in 1939. 



By the early 1960's it became evident, mainly as a 

 result of the research work of lATTC, that the stocks of 

 yellowfin tuna fished by the California fleet had reached 

 their maximum sustainable harvest, and in 1966 they 

 came under effective international regulation for the first 

 time, on the recommendation of the Commission. 



