FISHERIES FOR THE FUTURE 



Although it lies closer to the shores of the Americas than 

 those of Asia, Hawaii is a part of the Indo-Pacific region, so 

 far as its fauna is concerned. Its fishes are more like those 

 of Indonesia than of Mexico. In October 1966 Honolulu 

 played host to a meeting of scientists concerned with the 

 fish resources of the Indo-Pacific region. 



This meeting took place at the East-West Center at the 

 University of Hawaii from October 3 to 16. The U. S. dele- 

 gate to the conference was John C. Marr, Director, Hawaii 

 Area, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. His alternate was 

 John A. Dassow from the Bureau's Technological Laboratory 

 in Seattle. 



The Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council (fig. 30) was initiated 

 under an agreement signed at Baguio, Philippines, in 1948 

 and established under the auspices of the Food and Agricul- 

 ture Organization of the United Nations in the same year. 

 Its objectives are "the development and proper utilization 

 of the living aquatic resources of the Indo-Pacific area," and 

 "attainment of these ends through international coopera- 

 tion." The member countries are Australia, Burma, Cam- 

 bodia, Ceylon, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, 

 Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, 

 Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and South Viet- 

 nam. 



The home of more than one-third of the world's population, 

 the Indo-Pacific is the site of some of the largest fisheries 

 in existence. In some of these countries the culture of fishes 

 for food, an art which dates back more than 2,500 years, 

 contributes substantially to the diet of the people. Extensive 

 research on fish culture is conducted in the field. At the 12th 

 IPFC (Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council) Session there was 

 considerable interest in reports from several nations on 

 their experiments in breeding completely new kinds of fishes. 

 In India even intergeneric hybrids have been bred. As one of 



the delegates to the Council put it, the limits of the produc- 

 tion of cultured fish is "just what man chooses to make it." 

 He suggested that the future might see such fish far more 

 important than marine fish, in terms of food. 



The seas of the Indo-Pacific region are far from being 

 fully utilized. Few of the nations are approaching the poten- 

 tial of the areas immediately adjacent to their coasts. 

 Almost all, and notably Thailand and South Korea, are mak- 

 ing determined and increasingly successful efforts to increase 

 their share of food from the sea. 



As a part of the American share of the International 

 Indian Ocean Expedition, Richard S. Shomura of the Labo- 

 ratory in Honolulu headed the studies of the U. S. fisheries 

 of the Indian Ocean. Two papers resulting from this re- 

 search were presented to IPFC. One, by Shomura, described 

 the pelagic catches made on two fishery cruises. Over half 

 the fishes caught were tunas. Most plentiful was the yellow- 

 fin tuna; bigeye tuna, albacore, and skipjack tuna appeared 

 in decreasing order. Shomura and Frederic S. Osell of the 

 Laboratory in Honolulu and Shoji Kikawa of Nankai Region- 

 al Fisheries Research Laboratory, Japan, are now preparing 

 an exhaustive study of the longline catches (with the addi- 

 tion of data from the active Japanese longline fleet) and 

 oceanographic conditions in the Indian Ocean. 



The same fishing cruises provided material for Kikawa, 

 who visited the Laboratory in Honolulu for several months 

 in 1966, and Maria G. Ferraro to investigate the maturation 

 and spawning of tunas in the Indian Ocean. They found that 

 albacore spawned below lat. 10" S., yellowfin tuna from 

 slightly north of the Equator to lat. 10°-20° S. 



One of the chief features of the IPFC meeting was a 2-day 

 symposium on Fisheries Education and Training. Systems 

 from around the world were described, including those in 

 Australia, Canada, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan 



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