Often times a haul could be made in less than oiie hoxir with 

 a maximxun catch of 2,000 kilograms (two tons). With large catches 

 per haul, some three to fo\ir hours fishirg would net a load sufficient 

 for the mother ship to make a trip to market. The mother ships 

 averaged two trips per month from the ground to the market with loads 

 of from 30,000 to 36,000 pounds (15-18 tons) of fish. 



DlBCUBBlon 



As can "be ascertained from the foregoing description of 

 methods, fishing on coral reefs presents some problems that are 

 unique to the fishing industry. Chief among the considerations is 

 the limitation imposed by the nature of such an environment - the 

 rugged bottom terrain, plus the variable depths, both of which 

 conspire to make reef exploitation hazardous to any type of gear. 

 Yet in tropical countries where the productivity of the sea is 

 limited, such areas often offer the only opportunity for fishing 

 on a commercial scale; and in many places in the world, the only 

 animal foods available for the people. 



Reef fishing among primitive people poses no problems 

 as a rale, since the take is- small and the demand modest. Indeed, 

 one of the so-called undesirable methods, the use of poisons, is 

 a cievelorjment of people of elementary culture. But when the supxjly 

 of food for a tropical nation has to be provided for, reefs and 

 their management become matters of basic importance. 



Pishing by meeoiB of explosives has long been frowned upon 

 all over the civilized world. The conception of the imdesirability 

 of this type of effort stems from sports fishing, in all likelihood, 

 and it is easy to see where, in the limited area of inland streams 

 and lakes, such activity would be detrimental in the extreme. In 

 the bays, estuaries, and coves of the sea it is also quite probable 

 that continued use of heavy charges would, in time, seriously deplete, 

 if not entirely denude such areas of their fish life. 



It seems reasonable that the use of explosives probably 

 has three serious consequences. The first of these is its inordinate 

 wastefulness. Fishermen generally agree that only a small proportion 

 of the fish killed are ever recovered. There are no true estimates 

 available but it is ofiten indicated that less than half of the 

 marketable fish are ever shipped from the mass of fishes killed in 

 a dynamiting operation. This is probably more true in reefs, where 

 many fish are caught up in pockets and holes, than xn any other type 

 of environment. Another possible effect that causes consternation 

 is the killing of the yo\:ng and eggs of the resident species. It 

 is doubtful if the fishes inhabiting a reef ever migrate far and it 

 is very likely that many of them live through their entire life- 

 history on a single reef. In such cases the almost complete elimi- 

 nation of fish from a reef for many years is a distinct possibility. 

 This could be compovinded easily with a third effect, viz. the 



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