THE TUNA LONGLINE FISHERY AND ITS FISHING GROUNDS 



by 

 Hiroshi Nakaxnura 



Introduction 



The Japanese tuna fishery, which formerly had for its fishing grounds almost the 

 whole western Pacific and a part of the Indian Ocean, wherein its small vessels roamed at will, 

 was reduced by the Pacific war to such a nearly complete state of destruction that little was left 

 to remind one of its former condition. 



On the one hand it was forced to accept restrictions wliich can only be called mortal 

 in the form of an iron chain of limitations upon its fishing areas, and on the other hand it lost a 

 large number of fishing vessels and the excellent advanced bases in Okinawa, Formosa, the 

 Ogasawara Islands, and the mandated South Sea islands. With even the materials necessary for 

 fishing difficult to obtain, the problems faced by this fishery were certainly not easy ones. 



When we look at the course taken by this fishery from the end of the war to the 

 present day, we see that despite the many difficulties and obstacles mentioned above the tonnage 

 of its fishing vessels has already in a comparatively short period recovered to a level close to 

 that of before the war. This fact demonstrates the unstinted efforts of the people engaged in this 

 fishery, efforts which are truly worthy of admiration. However, considering this situation cold- 

 ly, we must also adnnit that the rapid tempo of recovery in this fishery reflects the confusion in 

 Japanese fisheries circles after the war and the fact that this fishery became the object of 

 investment as a measure to relieve the depression in other industries. Consequently, it can 

 hardly be said that this fishery has undergone a substantially healthy recovery. In fact, it has a 

 character which can hardly be considered under the heading of rapid progress. Now, 4 years 

 after the war, the tuna industry cannot be said to be as promising as was hoped at the beginning 

 of its new start, but it appears rather to be fraught with many problems and hardships. 



The cause of these problems and hardships is probably the same as that of the 

 hardships which beset the Japanese fishing industry as a whole, that is the restriction on fishing 

 grounds. In part too it should probably be considered due to the overall abnormality of the 

 Japanese fisheries in recent years caused by so-called oceanographic abnormalities. 



Because the waters opened to Japan's fisheries are largely those off her Pacific 

 coast, a good deal of objectivity can probably be detected in the fact that the tuna fishery has been 

 temporarily in the spotlight and has come in for a great deal of attention. When we come to the 

 question of how much of a scientific nature there was in the manner in which this attention was 

 given to the fishery, we cannot unfortunately give any answer. The sad fact is that we have hard- 

 ly any scientific knowledge which could have been considered in connection with this fishery. 

 Expressed concretely, what we mean by knowledge of a scientific nature would be such things as 

 how many vessels should be permitted to operate in the waters allowed to us, in view of the size 

 of the resources, and how much they could be expected to produce. With regard to such ques- 

 tions, is there not at present almost no one who could give an accurate analysis? 



The tuna, along with the snapper and the carp, is among the fish with which the 

 Japanese are best acquainted, its name being known even to 3-year-old children. However, 

 scientific knowledge concerning these fishes is extremely poor and this fishery can be thought to 

 be the most primitive in character which we have. 



The reasons why the tuna fishery is productively at jin extremely low ebb are set 

 forth in this book in the section on the characteristics of the tuna fishery, but to put it briefly, 

 it is because this fishery is largely lacking in planability or stability. The reasons for this are 

 that, because the range of distribution of the fishes which are the object of the fishery is 



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