catches made on it point to the usefulness 

 of determining what other unknown sea 

 mounts may be buried in unanalyzed sounding 

 data now on hand. It would seem worthwhile 

 to continue this project for at least an- 

 other year if we are able to persuade the 

 U. S. Navy to declassify the material. 



We mentioned that the CCOFI oceano- 

 graphic data have never been examined, 

 except for Mr. Clemen's study of tempera- 

 tures, in relation to seasonal occurrence, 

 availability, and distribution of albacore. 

 We consider that this is a prerequisite to 

 planning research in the area of the alba- 

 core fishery. This should be done before 

 exploring the possibility of extending the 

 albacore season through work at sea. The 

 state agencies, the California Department 

 of Fish and Game in particular, have rather 

 good records of fishing in these areas over 

 the last several years. If we undertake an 

 albacore investigation, it could be best 

 done jointly or in cooperation with the 

 states and the Pacific Marine Fisheries 

 Commission. 



It is our understanding that both 

 scientists and fishermen, particularly 

 albacore fishermen, consider useful the 

 charts distributed monthly by the Bureau's 

 Honolulu Biological Laboratory. They show 

 sea surface temperature averages over the 

 Pacific, east of 180°, for the middle ten 

 days of each month. Temperatures are con- 

 toured from 55°N to 20°N and available 

 readings are tabulated in one-degree squares 

 to the south of 20°N because they are insuf- 

 ficient to permit contouring. At the present 

 time the readings are those taken by merchant 

 ships for the U.S. Weather Bureau. They are 

 made available at the latter' s central office 

 in Honolulu via the San Francisco Central. 

 Coverage could be increased by obtaining 

 the data directly from San Francisco because 

 this office does not forward all readings 

 to Honolulu. Also, it might be profitable 

 to include data for the entire month in 

 order to give better coverage to the area 

 of the tropical fishery and to make possible 

 contouring of this region. We should like 

 to have your reaction to our extending this 

 service . 



If all the available Weather Bureau 

 sea-surface temperature readings did not 

 prove adequate, we could explore the pos- 

 sibility of obtaining more readings from 

 other sources. Some tuna boats collect 



temperature data for the Weather Bureau} 

 possibly others could be persuaded to do 

 so. Dr. Schaefer, as a member of the 

 National Academy of Sciences Committee on 

 Opeanography, recently inquired, without 

 apparent success so far, into the possi- 

 bility of interesting the U.S. Air Force 

 in making regular aerial surveys of a part 

 of the Eastern Pacific to obtain synoptic 

 sea-surface temperature data which would 

 be useful not only to fishermen but also 

 to the Weather Bureau and weather re- 

 searchers. The instrumentation to do this 

 is available. A bolometer developed at 

 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will 

 measure back radiation from the sea-surface 

 while the plane flies at about 1500 feet 

 and these measurements can be converted to 

 water temperature readings. It may be 

 worthwhile for the Bureau, in cooperation 

 with other interested parties, to follow- 

 up Dr. Schaefer 's initial inquiry. 



Biology 



We think that the time is ripe to begin 

 studies of tuna and bait-fish behavior. 

 It would seem logical to begin initially with 

 an analysis of the Tuna Commission's logbook 

 data, which the Commission's director has 

 graciously agreed to make available, if this 

 research is started, to determine whether 

 observations recorded by the tuna boat 

 skippers will permit us to learn anything 

 about the behavior of the fish in relation 

 to catches made; to "pick the brains" of 

 skippers with superior fishing success in 

 each of the fleets; and to have scientists 

 make observations at sea aboard commercial 

 vessels. A year from this summer, if funds 

 are available, we could begin making ob- 

 servations at sea from chartered vessels, 

 either research or commercial vessels. We 

 could, of course, draw heavily on the 

 results of the work and experience of our 

 Honolulu laboratory which is now engaged 

 in behavior studies. 



The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Com- 

 mission keeps detailed records of catch and 

 fishing effort for the tropical tunas. The 

 Commission uses these data primarily to 

 determine how the stocks respond to changes 

 in fishing intensity. Some of this material 

 was used in discussing the time taken in 

 various fishing operations, how some boats 

 make shorter trips than others, and to show 

 how recent technological improvements have 

 assisted the purse seine fishermen. The 



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