40 

 the data from these agencies is invaluable. 



Unfortunately, none of these studies provide the detailed 

 kind of basic demographic data needed. The U.S. Census data are 

 very superficial and the data are aggregated in ways that give a 

 picture of units no smaller than towns. The National Marine 

 Fisheries Service collects only data on such items as species 

 caught and a little data about the fleet. There is no informa- 

 tion about fishing effort, or any other kind of data on social 

 and political institutions or economic performance. 



Most of the other studies mentioned above are oriented 

 toward the collection of economic data — and most of the University 

 studies have been restricted to New England. They do not give 

 us socio-cultural data on the U.S. as a v/hole. More important, 

 there is no way the information from these various studies could 

 be conveniently synthesized. The raw data from one study could 

 only be added to the data from another if all of the original 

 interview sheets on the same person or boat were receded and run 

 through the computer again. This would not only be very time- 

 consuming (assuming principal investigators would release the 

 data) , but it would scarcely be worthwhile given the fact that 

 additional information needs to be collected. Rather than attempt 

 to resynthesize existing data, etc., it would be far better and 

 easier to do another survey containing questions on all the 

 relevant social and economic factors in all coastal areas of the 

 U.S. 



