spawning, the larval and juvenile skipjack, should be sought 

 in an area of the Pacific reaching from the Hawaiian Islands 

 2.400 miles southeast to the Tuamotu Archipelago, and their 

 genetic relationships determined. Equally important will be 

 genetic studies of the skipjack of the eastern Pacific catch. 



A few days before Rothschild's paper was scheduled to 

 come off the press, the Laboratory received a copy of the 

 Bulletin of the Tolioku Regional Fisheries Research Labora- 

 tory that contained an article by T. Kawasaki whose conclu- 

 sions to some degree paralleled those of Rothschild. It is 

 interesting that two men working independently should have 

 arrived at somewhat similar conclusions from the sparse 

 existing data on an exceedingly complex problem. 



Kawasaki goes a step further than Rothschild is now 

 prepared to do. He suggests that there are relations between 

 the catch in Japan and that in the central Pacific. If he is 

 right — and it is not known that he is wrong — he has intro- 

 duced a new element into considerations of the fishery. The 

 present controversy over the salmon of Bristol Bay illus- 

 trates vividly some of the difficulties that can arise when 

 two nations draw upon a single stock. The possibility that 

 his assumption may be valid underscores the pressing need 

 for more detailed information about the skipjack resource. 



Hawaiians, Californians, and Japanese are not the only 

 fishers of skipjack tuna. It is one of the most widespread of 

 the food species. Prior to World War II, the islands that 

 now form the Trust Territory of the Pacific were mandated 

 to the Japanese, and a skipjack tuna fishery flourished there, 

 taking as much as 72.8 million pounds in a single year, 

 seven times the average Hawaiian catch. Today this fishery 

 is being revived under the auspices of the i)resent trustee of 

 the islands, the United States. A substantial fieet is build- 

 ing up at Palau in the Carolines and an American compan\- 



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19 



