APPENDIX III APPENDIX III 
less than 50 fathoms deep. Over one-half of the eastern Pa- 
cific Continental Shelf extending northward from California 
is in the eastern Bering Sea. 
Although much information on the kinds and quantities of 
fish and shellfish occurring in the Bering Sea and Northeast 
Pacific is available from research cruises and from records 
of domestic and foreign fishing operations, large knowledge 
gaps still exist. 
We do know, however, that the waters of the Northeast Pa- 
cific and Bering Sea are inhabited by some of this Nation's 
largest and most valuable fisheries resources. From these 
waters, U.S. fishermen harvested in 1971-73 an annual average 
of 639 million pounds of fish and shellfish with an annual 
dockside value of $170 million. However, the harvest by for- 
eign nations from these waters dwarfs that of the United 
States and accounts for about two-thirds of the foreign 
catch from all waters within 200 miles of the U.S. coast. 
Most of the foreign catch is groundfish, which is little 
sought after by U.S. fishermen because American fishermen are 
unable to successfully compete with the large foreign fleets. 
Waters off Alaska are the site of Japan's most important dis- 
tant-water fishing grounds, accounting in 1972 for about 60 
percent of that nation's worldwide distant-water catch. The 
Soviet Union also conducts a large and valuable fishery for 
groundfish off Alaska and the Pacific coast. During 1970-74, 
these waters contributed 26 percent of the Soviet Union's 
catch from the entire Pacific Ocean and 10 percent of the 
catch from all marine waters. More recently, the Republic of 
Korea, Poland, East and West Germany, and the Republic of 
China have commenced fishing operations off the U.S. Pacific 
coast. 
An estimate of the potential U.S. harvest may be viewed 
as the sum of the foreign and domestic catches; for 1974 this 
was 5.75 billion pounds of groundfish. The U.S. portion of 
that catch was only 176 million pounds, or about 3 percent. 
Perhaps a better estimate of the potential harvest would in- 
clude additional yields that could be obtained from under- 
utilized and unutilized resources, such as certain species 
of flounders and rockfish. Also, many of the presently 
harvested species have been overfished and their yields could 
be increased with proper management. 
In the spring and summer of 1974, Government and industry 
carried out a joint venture to survey the potential of de- 
veloping a domestic fishery for Alaska groundfish. Comparing 
the results of this operation with surveys in the Gulf of 
Alaska during the 1950s and 1960s, the abundance of Pacific 
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