the years 1953-63 for the Governor's Conference. These 

 estimates show that although the contributions of the other 

 oceans have been rising, the Pacific has continued to supply 

 well over half the catch. Not until 1962 did either of the 

 other oceans exceed the Pacific catch of any one of the tuna 

 species. Then, and in 1963 as well, several thousand more 

 tons of bluefin tuna were taken from the Indian Ocean than 

 the Pacific, as the fishery pushed far into the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere. 



Otsu and Sumida's estimates clearly show the impact 

 made by the resurgence of the Japanese fleet upon the tuna 

 resource in the Pacific Ocean. They disclose that the long- 

 liners took a total of 2.4 million tons of tunas from the 

 Pacific Ocean in the 11 years, 1953-64. This figure seems 

 enormous until one compares it with the catch of that small 

 corner of the Pacific Ocean fished by the far fewer vessels 

 of the eastern Pacific fleet. There the total catch during 

 the same period was 2.3 million tons. In other words, for 

 the longline fleet, the fish are still relatively few and far 

 between. The numbers cited by Otsu and Sumida suggest 

 that in 1953 the Japanese longliners caught one tuna for 

 every 30 hooks they put out and that by 1963 they were 

 catching only one for every 40, or, to put it more con- 

 ventionally, the catch of tunas per 100 hooks had declined 

 from about three to about two. Longlining is hard and often 

 profitless. It has never been adopted in the United States 

 (except in the small Hawaiian fishery) and, unless it can be 

 mechanized more thoroughly than at present (or prices go 

 up several times) , seems little likely to be so. 



The Japanese longline fleet has more than declining 

 catch per unit of effort to worry about. The South Koreans 

 and Chinese are building new vessels and pitting them 

 against the Japanese fleet. In the fishery based in American 

 Samoa in the South Pacific, for example, the Japanese 

 vessels had no competitors until 1962, when the Koreans 

 arrived. The Chinese followed in 1964, and by the last quar- 



FIGURE II. Some tunos caught by Joponese longliners based in the 

 South Pacific are tronsshipped to the United States. Here frozen 

 tuna are being unloaded in Honolulu. 



19 



