Although the tuna and tunalike fishes are world-wide in distribu- 

 tion and occur abundantly in most tropical and temperate waters, the 

 major areas of production before World War II were centered in: 1) The 

 eastern Pacific from California to Ecuador, 2) the coastal and nearby 

 offshore waters along the Japanese islands, 3) the eastern Atlantic 

 off Portugal, Spain, and France, and 4) the Mediterranean area, particu- 

 larly near Sicily and North Africa and in the vicinity of the Dardan- 

 elles.. The opening of a large tuna market in the United States during 

 the 1930 's stimulated much exploration and development in various parts 

 of the world and new fishing grounds came into prominence o Among the 

 foremost developments before World War II were the Japanese discoveries 

 of albacore grounds in the mid-Pacific and yellowfin tuna grounds in 

 the southwest Pacific « 



In 1939 over 825 million pounds of tuna and tunalike fishes were 

 landed^ almost half of this amount was taken by Japanese fishermeno 

 Next in importance were the landings by the United States tuna fleet, 

 accounting for 22 percent of the world's totalo Turkish landings, 

 principally bonitOj were estimated to be about l6 percent of the world 

 total during the 1930' So Western European countries (France, Spain, 

 and Portugal) were fourth in importance with landings amounting to 

 slightly over 8 percent of the world's tuna catcho The remainder of 

 the landings were iiBde by numerous other countries which caught tuna 

 incidentally cr commercially in small amounts to supply foreign markets 

 or local processing industries o 



A major change in the world pattern of tuna production occurred 

 during and after World War II » The need for animal protein food dur- 

 ing the war and the interest shown by Latin American countries in dev- 

 eloping their tuna and bonito fisheries were mainly responsible for 

 increased landings in Peru and Chile » Japan, which doninated the ex- 

 port of canned and frozen tuna to the United States before World V^ar II, 

 has recently increased this trade and is now extensively fishing the 

 albacore and yellowfin tuna grounds that were partially exploited 

 before the waro It is now able to supply both home and foreign markets 

 almost at willo 



In 1951 world tuna production increased to over 1 billion pounds, 

 Japan again being the leading producer with approximatelj' 36 percent 

 of world landings o The United States had a larger share of the world 

 landings than in 1939, its fleet supplying about 32 percent of the 

 world's totalo Peru has shown the most striking Increase in landings— 

 from 0o2 percent in 1939 to nearly 13 percent of the world'p supply in 



113 



