Radcliffe. — Fishery Products Laboratories 7 



More detailed reference will now be made to some of the 

 problems of the industry, most of which fall within the province 

 of fishery products laboratories, and to investigations in progress. 



SOME OF THE PROBLEMS IN THE INDUSTRY. 



Capture, handling and distribution: In many cases present 

 methods of capture are exceedingly wasteful, and millions of 

 pounds of immature or unmarketable fish are destroyed annually. 

 Laws intended to afford protection too often are more or less 

 futile, wholly inadequate or unnecessarily obstructive. To 

 illustrate, in certain waters tons of small butterfish are destroyed 

 each summer. The form of these fish prevents their ready passage 

 through the meshes of nets required for the capture of other food 

 fishes, the law prohibits their sale for food or fertilizer, and as they 

 are dead when taken from the nets, the loss is complete. 



In some cases methods of capture are inadequate and private 

 individuals lack the funds and facilities for large-scale experiments 

 to effect improvement. The general use of the hook-and-line 

 in the tuna fishery will illustrate. Thorough investigations by 

 experienced workers conversant with the fisheries will undoubtedly 

 develop improved forms of apparatus and means for lessening losses, 

 will reveal the necessity for the exercise of greater care in taking 

 the fish, of culling the catch where practicable and, where destruc- 

 tion is unavoidable, the need of permitting the use of the fish 

 for some economic purpose. 



There is equal need for effecting improvement in the methods 

 of handling and distributing fish. For example, the practice of 

 many small boat fishermen of leaving their catch in the bottom 

 of an open boat exposed to flies and the direct rays of the sun is 

 entirely too common. In the majority of cases it should be possible 

 to remedy such conditions with little additional labor and equip- 

 ment, in fact crude experiments recently made indicate that it is 

 entirely feasible. Careful study should be made of the methods 

 of preparation of fresh fish for market. For instance, one investi- 

 gator has recently called attention to the point that eviscerated 

 fish with the gills left in spoil more quickly than if the gills are 

 removed and indicates the cause for this difference. 



I believe that in some of our larger fisheries, experiments will 

 prove it to be practicable to freeze the fish on the vessels as they 



