Though tunas were fished in the Mediterranean and in Japan ever 

 since prehistoric times, the large tuna fisheries of today are relative- 

 ly recent developments o Only the home island fishery of Japan and the 

 United States West coast fishery can be said to be well-developsdo It is 

 not known how much these two fisheries can continue to grow beyond their 

 present size.. In the Pacific Coast States area the landings (all species) 

 grew from about 44,820,000 pounds in 1920 to 99,347,000 pounds in 1930, 

 to 204,882,000 pounds in 1940, and to 389,852,000 pounds in 1950. Stric- 

 tures on growth since 1950 seem related to marketing rather than production 

 difficultieso If ^ai^ of "the latter have been partially effective in limit- 

 ing growth it has been through scarcity of live bait rather than the scarc- 

 ity of tunao NonethelesSj one cannot expect to double the catch every 

 decade indefinitely into the future, and it is possible that this particu- 

 lar fishery may have nearly reached its full development „ Studies under- 

 taken by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission are directed toward 

 examining this possibility. The tuna fishery of the Japanese home islands 

 has grown more gradually over a longer period of time and similarly has 

 reached a stage where further indefinite growth seems hardly likely » 



On the other hand during the last two decades it has become evident 

 that these two great tuna fishing areas are not the only sites of large 

 tuna resources. Prewar and postwar Japanese fishing expeditions in the 

 north Pacific convergence for albacore and in the equatorial countercurrent 

 region for yellowfin tuna have opened up resources in the western half of 

 the Pacific the potentials of which are not yet realized. For the eastern 

 half of the Pacific it appears that the equatorial region offers even bet- 

 ter possibilities and it can only be guessed that the eastern north Pacific 

 gyral may harbor albacore stocks similar to those farther west in the north 

 Pacific convergence. 



The Japanese, in prewar years, had also penetrated the waters among 

 the large island masses of southeast Asia with tuna fishing expeditions 

 and are now resuming their activities in this direction. Their results 

 suggest existence of large tuna stocks from the Solomons Island area on 

 the east to the Indonesian archipelago on the west. 



In the meantime development of still other tuna fisheries has begun 

 in continental-adjacent seas in other parts of the world. These activi- 

 ties are al.ong the west coast of South America (Peru), the west coast of 

 Africa (Angola), the east coast of Australia, in the Norwegian Sea, and 

 off northeast United States. In some instances these developments are in 

 a tentative trial stage, in others substantial production has alrondy been 

 achieved^ Some of the areas may prove to have only nominal possibilities, 



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