to size of staff and operational funds available., and valuable as 

 they are as sources oi information on the Great Lakes fish and 

 fisheries 5 they do not reflect the type of research that the staff 

 members would have desired and that has long been urgently needed 

 on the Great Lakes o Even the original collections were handicapped 

 by the impossibility of scheduling sampling and observations as a 

 well-plarjied biological research program would require; rather^ the col- 

 lections had to be made as opportunity presented while major attention 

 was given the "emergency" situation that had drawn outside assistance. 

 Still more damaging was the lack of the continuity of observation that 

 is so essential to an understanding of the changes that take place in 

 populations o The effective use of the large body of information amassed 

 during the first 20 odd years after the establishment of Great Lakes 

 Fishery Investigations will depend on the continuity of subsequent 

 researches. 



Throughout much of this "intermediate" period of Great Lakes 

 Fishery Investigations j Van Oosten, as Chief,, devoted considerable 

 attention to problems of fishery regulations » He attended many public 

 and legislative hearings, prepared numerous memoranda on proposed or 

 desirable legislation, and worked for interstate and international co- 

 operation in the establishment of more restrictive and uniform regula- 

 tions. At the same time he published a series of popular and serai- 

 popular articles in which he stressed: the progressive depletion of 

 the major fisheries of the lakes; the need for immediate and drastic 

 restrictions on fishing pressure to save the industry from collapse; 

 the seeming futility, as indicated by past experiences, of attaining 

 adequate and uniform regulations through voluntary cooperation of the 

 lake states and Ontario; the desirability of a treaty with Canada for 

 joint investigation and control of the Great Lakes fisheries. The 

 publicity thus given to Great Lakes fishery problems was a major factor 

 in the request of the Council of State Governments for the appointment 

 of the International Board of Inquiry for the Great Lakes Fisheries 

 (on which Van Oosten served as one of the United States members) and 

 ultimately in the negotiation of a treaty between the United States 

 and Canada for international investigation and control of the Great 

 Lakes fisheries 3/. 



Sea lampreys and the expanded Great Lakes Fishery Investigations , 

 19lt8-1952 o--Fiscal year 19U8 saw the first appropriation for the study 

 of the sea lamprey, the predator that had reached the upper Great Lakes 

 in the 1930's and by the late 19U0's had eliminated the lake trout 

 fishery in Lake Huron and had inflicted grievous injury in Lake Michigan, 

 Both the Great Lakes staff and members of the industry had been aware of 



3/ At the time of writing of this account (June 1952) the Foreign 

 Relations Committee of the United States Senate had taken no action 

 toward the ratification of this treaty. 



-7- 



