It should be noted that Japan's land- 

 ings in prewar years included those from 

 their appreciable fisheries in the Mandated 

 Islands, plus catches from such areas as 

 the vicinity of Formosa, and the Ityukyu 

 Islands and that the areas other than those 

 immediately adjacent to the home islands 

 are essentially no longer available to the 

 skipjack fishery which uses live bait. The 

 loss of the Mandated Islands' fishery in 

 terms of the skipjack's percentage of pro- 

 duction was partly compensated for by the 

 entrance of Peru in the skipjack fishery in 

 postwar years. It is important to note 

 that among the Japanese tuna fisheries in 

 the Pacific, the skipjack fishery ranks 

 first in both prewar and postwar years. 

 The average landings of this fishery in the 

 period 195U to 1957 were 189,000 tons per 

 year. Because it is known that there are 

 several modest local fisheries for skipjack 

 in the Western Pacific, it follows that the 

 actual catches are somewhat in excess of 

 those indicated in figure 17. 



Yellowfin tuna are primarily landed 

 by Japan, the United States and Peru. 

 Yellowfin landings rank second to skipjack, 

 in both the prewar and postwar period. The 

 yellowfin landings increased by 98 percent 

 in the postwar years as compared to the 

 prewar years shown. Japan's landings, which 

 accounted for less than 10 percent of the 

 Pacific yellowfin landings in prewar years 

 (1937 through 19h0) now amount to about 32 

 percent. The United States is by far the 

 leading producer of this species in the 

 Pacific. The increase in yellowfin landings 

 in Japan is a result of the expansion of 

 fishing grounds and increased fishing ef- 

 fort, especially in the tropical Pacific 

 Ocean. 



In the Pacific Ocean albacore are 

 taken primarily by Japan and the United 

 States with a number of other countries, 

 including Canada, making relatively minor 

 contributions to the catch. Annual alba- 

 core landings have more than doubled from 

 32,000 to 68,000 tons, an increase of 112 

 percent. The increase in Japanese albacore 

 landings over the years has resulted from 

 the expansion of fishing grounds in tropical 

 waters. In addition to their summer live 

 bait and winter long-line fisheries in the 

 North Pacific, considerable albacore land- 

 ings are made in tropical waters by mother- 

 ship expeditions, foreign-based vessels and 

 independent long liners. 



While bigeye are taken by fishermen 

 of a number of countries bordering the 

 Pacific, the only substantial amounts of 

 this species are caught by the Japanese. 

 The bigeye catch is not generally identi- 

 fied in United States statistics but is 

 included with yellowfin. For the prewar 

 and postwar periods, the catches of bigeye 

 averaged 10,000 and 36,000 tons per year 

 respectively, an increase of more than 300 

 percent, this resulted largely from in- 

 creased effort on the bigeye fishing grounds 

 north of Hawaii. 



Bluefin tuna landings in the Pacific 

 increased approximately 1*2 percent from 

 26,000 to 37,000 tons per year for the 

 periods compared. At least part of the 

 increase in bluefin landings is associated 

 with the development of fisheries in the 

 South Pacific near Australia but the general 

 expansion of the Japanese fisheries has had 

 its effects. 



These data point out the dominance of 

 the United States in Pacific yellowfin pro- 

 duction and Japan's dominance in the pro- 

 duction of all other tuna species. The 

 other striking feature is that Japan's land- 

 ings are continuing to rise, whereas those 

 of the United States are not. 



Since Japan does play a dominant role 

 in world tuna production and since only for 

 the Pacific can an ocean-wide catch be 

 approximated, it is worthwhile to turn back 

 to Japanese information to briefly examine 

 their Pacific catches and then focus care- 

 fully on the catches made by Japanese 

 nationals in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. 



The data for figure 18 were obtained 

 from the Kanagawa Prefectual Fisheries 

 Experimental Station in Kanagawa, Japan, 

 through the courtesy of Mr. Jun Nakagome. 

 Minor adjustments were made to include 

 Japanese mothership and foreign-based land- 

 ings. Total landings, rather than long-line 

 landings alone, are shown. 



Figure 18 shows rather small landings 

 of each of the major species in the 1950 

 period. Thereafter, the landings fluctu- 

 ated. In 1957 the Pacific landings were 

 large for all species. Landings of albacore 

 include those made in the summer live -bait 

 fishery off the coast of Japan proper. An- 

 other major portion is made up of landings 

 made in the mid-ocean winter long-line 



29 



