PART 2 



THE DOMESTIC TUNA-FISHING INDUSTRY 



HARVESTING THE TUNA RESOURCE 



by 

 Gerald V. Howard 1/ 



Purpose of the domestic tuna fishing industry, like any other industry, is to 

 make a profit in order to stay in business and to expand. For several years, the tuna 

 fishing industry has been in an unhealthy condition. There has been no expansion since 

 1951 and, since 1953 at least, the average tuna boat owner has experienced either mar- 

 ginal profits or losses on his investment. Capacity of the three fleets, the large 

 clippers, the purse seiners and the albacore craft, has dwindled every year since 1951 

 when it was at a maximum. The clipper fleet has been reduced in number from 210 to 

 about 125. Eighty large seiners fished tuna in 1951; less than 50 fish today. More than 

 3,000 craft participated in the albacore fishery in 1951; less than half that number 

 fished in 1958. Fishermen manning these vessels have seen their earnings slump and em- 

 ployment opportunities have dropped drastically. It is not a pretty picture. 



The unhappy situation results from the 

 steady decline in the price of tuna and 

 restrictions on fishing operations - fish- 

 ermen are unable to sell at an acceptable 

 price as much fish as they can catch. In- 

 flation has aggravated the situation. 



Those who have seen catch data in 

 terms of man days at sea are aware that 

 American tuna fishermen are much more ef- 

 ficient than most foreign fishermen. If 

 this were not true, American tuna fisher- 

 men would long since have been essentially 

 wiped out. It is only superior efficiency 

 that keeps them in business at all. 



For years, fishermen have advocated 

 tariffs or quotes on tuna imports as the 

 immediate and most effective solution of 



1/ Laboratory Director, Bureau of 



Commercial Fisheries, Biological Lab- 

 oratory, San Diego, California. 



their difficulty. Any other means or cir- 

 cumstances that will contribute to their 

 solution will take time. Since the con- 

 trol of imports is outside the province of 

 the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, it is 

 the longer range solutions that we must 

 explore . 



I believe that we can perhaps obtain 

 some comfort from Mr. D. R. Johnson's 

 observation that the Japanese may not be 

 able to continue to increase their tuna 

 production indefinitely without appreciably 

 adding to their cost of production. So 

 far, they have been able to keep cost down 

 by continually moving into virgin areas. 

 If the cost of Japanese tuna production 

 does eventually approach that of the United 

 States' operators, and if the United States 

 market continues to expand, prices for tuna 

 will rise and our fleets will again be 

 economically competitive. However, dis- 

 cussion of these possibilities is academic 



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