[Reprinted from the Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1935] 



BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



The fisheiT industry has not shown improvement in recent years to 

 the extent apparent in several other food industries. In fact, during 

 the fiscal year 1935 the fishery industry lost some of the gains which 

 •were made during the previous fiscal year. This has been especially 

 true with the fishermen and distributors of so-called "market " 

 fishes. Included in this category are such fishes as haddock, mack- 

 erel, halibut, mullet, red snappers, lake herring, and others. As a 

 rule, these fishes are marketed in the fresh and frozen condition. 

 Partial reports from the principal ports indicate a larger quantity 

 of some of these fishes have entered the market during the past year, 

 but the prices received by the fishermen have been less. By far the 

 greater number of our fishermen are engaged in catching market 

 fishes and in many instances these fishermen are unorganized. 



During the past fiscal year some improvement has been noted 

 among fishermen catching and selling " cannery " fishes, such as 

 salmon, pilchards (sardines). Pacific coast mackerel, tunas, and 

 others. This may be due to better organization among these fisher- 

 men as well as to the fact that canned fish is finding a better demand 

 among consumers. Improvement among the sardine, Alaska her- 

 ring, and menhaden fishermen, no doubt, has been due to a recent 

 act of Congress, which has brought about a brisk demand in this 

 country for domestically produced fish oils. 



The fisheries of the United States and Alaska are prosecuted on 

 the hifjjh seas and in the territorial waters of the Atlantic and Pa- 

 cific Oceans and in the Gulf of Mexico and their adjacent waters, 

 as well as in the Great Lakes and other interior waters. Available 

 data for 1933, when the most recent detailed catch surveys were 

 made, indicate an appreciable increase in both the volume and the 

 value of the catch as compared with the previous year. Statistics 

 of the catch in the New England, Middle Atlantic, Chesapeake, and 

 Pacific States, and Alaska were collected for 1933, and when consid- 

 ering the combined catch of these sections alone an increase of 13 

 percent in the volume and also 13 percent in the value of the catch 

 in 1933 is indicated as compared with the same sections in the 

 previous year. 



Based on the most recent surveys, our commercial fisheries gave 

 emplovment to about 118,000 fishermen, and their catch aggregated 

 2,899,908,000 pounds, valued at $60,218,000. There were ^increases 

 in most of the groups of prepared products. The output of canned 

 products amounted to 533,212,000 pounds, valued at $59,800,000, rep- 

 resenting an increase of 28 percent in volume and 37 percent in value 

 as compared with 1932; the output of fishery byproducts was valued 

 at $17,466,000, representing an increase of 40 percent; and the pro- 

 duction of frozen fishery products amounted to 95,874,000 pounds, 



39259—36 1 87 



