INTRODUCTION 



This report deals with research results achieved by the 

 Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (BCF) Biological Labora- 

 tory in Honolulu from January 1, 1964, to June 30, 1965. 

 Highlig-hts of the reporting period include: 



1. Successful employment of new methods to maintain 

 living tunas in experimental tanks, a feat that has made 

 possible the first visual acuity curves and hearing curves 

 obtained from any of the several species of tunas; new 

 measurements of swimming speeds of tunas ; description of 

 the fish community around and near a floating object at sea; 



2. Discovery and use of a highly sensitive new blood 

 group system for the identification of subpopulations of the 

 skipjack tuna; 



3. Publication of a set of hypotheses that analyzes all 

 published material on the skipjack tuna to depict their 

 migrations in the eastern half of the Pacific; these hypoth- 

 eses suggest that the eastern Pacific and Hawaiian fisheries 

 are in part drawing on the same stock, a subpopulation that 

 is spawned in the equatorial waters south of Hawaii ; they 

 suggest also that the fishery reflects the passage of year- 

 classes of varying strength ; 



rich, warm current that sweeps northward off the shores 

 of Japan ; 



6. Surveys of the fishery resources of the world's third 

 largest and least known body of water, the Indian Ocean; 



7. Commissioning of one of the Nation's finest oceano- 

 graphic research vessels, the Townsevd Cromwell, and her 

 employment ; 



8. Conclusion of 16 month-long cruises in the Hawaiian 

 Islands as precursor to a larger investigation of the oceano- 

 graphy of the entire Trade Wind Zone, one of the most 

 ambitious projects in American oceanography; 



9. Completion of an oceanographic atlas of the Pacific 

 Ocean, drawn from a massive amount of data collected dur- 

 ing the past 58 years and offering definitive depictions of 

 average seasonal conditions in the sea in layers of most 

 concern to the fisheries, those between the surface and about 

 5,000 feet ; 



10. Research on a bold new concept in man's study of 

 the sea, a nuclear-powered submarine dedicated to research. 



4. Analysis of the emerging tuna fishery of the South 

 Pacific ; establishment of a cooperative agreement between 

 this BCF Laboratory and the Nankai Laboratory in Japan 

 to carry out common studies of the Pacific's tuna resources ; 



5. Representation of the interests of the United States 

 in international organizations designed toward the better 

 utilization of the marine resources of the Indo-Pacific region 

 and the conduct of a multination survey of the Kuroshio, the 



Put more briefly, the period has seen significant research 

 on the fishes, the fisheries, and the sea. This report deals 

 with those topics in that order. To provide background for 

 the general reader, material is touched upon that deals 

 neither with the work of the past 18 months nor of this 

 Laboratory. Detailed descriptions of research methods have 

 been kept at a minimum, on the grounds hat the person 

 most likely to be interested in them, the specialist, will 

 have ready access to such material elsewhere. 



