382 



U.S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



APPROPRIATIONS 



The work of the Division of Scientific Inquiry during 1933i was 

 supported chiefly by the appropriation "Inquiry respecting food 

 fishes ", of which approximately one-half was available from the 

 last half of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1933, and half from the 

 appropriation ending June 30, 1934. The amount appropriated 

 under this heading for the fiscal year 1933 amounted to $200,000, but 

 owing to administrative deductions under the Economy Act and by 

 official order the amount available for expenditure was only $178,001. 

 During the fiscal year 1934, $173,000 was appropriated under the 

 same heading, but of this amount only $122,033 was available for 

 expenditure. The appropriation for 1934 is therefore a reduction of 

 31.4 percent from the funds available for 1933, which in turn was a 

 reduction of 31 percent from the amount appropriated in the previ- 

 ous year. A summary of the amounts available for the various 

 major projects follows. 



Projects 



Commercial fishery investigations 



Oyster cultural investigations 



Aquicultural investigations 



Conserving fish by screens and ladders 



Washington Laboratory and administration 



Total 



Allotment for maintenance and operation of vessels 



$92, 711 



32, 552 



39, 538 



5,491 



7,719 



178, 001 



14, 000 



$65, 855 



22, 932 



30, 506 



250 



2,500 



122, 033 



10, 000 



This reduction in appropriation has resulted not only in the seri- 

 ous curtailment of field work in connection with all of the projects 

 and legislative reductions in salary, as well as the assignment of 

 administrative furlough to all the investigators, but has required the 

 dismissal of a number of the Division's regular staff. The most 

 serious aspect of this reduction in personnel lies in the diversion of 

 skill, experience, and technical training from fishery research into 

 other fields rather than in the increase of unemployment thereby. 

 This is a loss which will have a lasting effect upon the development 

 of fishery science and aquiculture for men with adequate funda- 

 mental training and sufficient practical experience to conduct pro- 

 ductive studies in these fields are extremely limited in number. 

 Since few universities offer adequate training in these lines, the re- 

 building of a scientific staff in the future will be correspondingly 

 retarded. 



Two of the Bureau's biological laboratories have been closed, and, 

 as noted elsewhere, the vessel facilities have been severely curtailed 

 by the loss of the Alhatross 11^ which was laid up during the fiscal 

 year 1932 and decommissioned on July 1 of that year, thus leaving 

 the Bureau with no means whatever of conducting certain essential 

 types of investigations on the fishing grounds where the most im- 

 portant marine fisheries of the United States are prosecuted. 



With the complete expenditure of funds allotted by the Public 

 Works Administration during the coming fiscal year, certain projects 



