NUMBER OF STUDIES AND SAMPLING PROBLEMS 



The number of community studies that should be done is a 

 problem. One is tempted to say that we should have a community 

 study on at least one major community involved in every major 

 fishery. That, of course, brings up the problem of what is a 

 fishery? Biologists tend to talk about fisheries in terms of the 

 species caught (e.g. the "lobster fishery," "shrimp," "tuna fish- 

 ery," etc.). Such a classification makes no sense at all in 

 discussing the people involved in fishing. After all, the same 

 men who are involved in the lobster fishery in Maine during the 

 spring, summer, and fall are catching shrim.p in the winter months 

 and may harpoon a few tuna in August. Clearly we need to focus 

 on units that the people are involved in--namely "communities," 

 whatever these units might be. 



While it is not clear how many kinds of fishing communi- 

 ties exist in the U.S., I estimate that an adequate job could be 

 done by obtaining detailed information on 10 to 15 communities 

 in various parts of the United States whose inhabitants are 

 engaged in a large number of different kinds of fishing operations. 

 The East coast, for example, could probably be adequately covered 

 by doing community studies on: a community in Maine where a lot of 

 lobstering and inshore dragging is done; a large port in Massachu- 

 setts or Fthode Island which does a lot of off shore fishing; a 

 community in the Chesapeake Bay area (oystering and crabbing) ; a 

 community in the Carolinas or Georgia where a lot of shrimping is 

 done; a community off the East Coast of Florida (inshore shrimping); 



