44^ : The Atlantic 



area of the world yet it is from these waters that man obtains prac- 

 tically all of the fish that find a way to his table. Again, the annual 

 take of the fisheries may be rated at twenty million metric tons. Ninety- 

 five per cent of this amount is taken from the shallow ocean waters of 

 the northern hemisphere with only 5 per cent coming from all other 

 sources combined. 



Owing to fluctuations in currency value and to the different mone- 

 tary units employed in the markets where fish is sold, it is extremely 

 difficult to put a dollars and cents valuation on the ocean fisheries 

 but the above facts are enough to suggest the value and the critical 

 importance of the Atlantic Ocean fisheries. 



This importance will probably increase in the future rather than 

 diminish particularly if populations continue to build up at the pres- 

 ent rate. Some people seem to think that all that is necessary in order 

 to secure more fish for the hungry world is to send more fishing boats 

 to sea apparently in the general belief that the sea is an unending 

 source of foodstuffs. They leave out of account the limited area 

 referred to above in which food fishes breed in adequate numbers to 

 make fishing an economic possibility. 



Oysters, clams, mussels, crabs, lobsters and fish are in themselves 

 palatable and add an interesting element to the human diet. The con- 

 tribution, however, that they make to the total volume of human 

 food consumed is small as compared with the production and con- 

 sumption of grains, vegetables and the meat of fowls and land ani- 

 mals. Again, it takes an extraordinary amount of time and labor to 

 catch fish even on the more productive and profitable fishing 

 grounds. An equal amount of time and energy expended on the pro- 

 duction of food on dry land still seems a more certain way of add- 

 ing to the total of the world's food supply. Thus, the best Iowa corn 

 land can produce 2,000 pounds of corn per acre per year while the 

 English Channel, which is one of the world's best fishing areas, pro- 

 duces an estimated yield of about five pounds per acre per year. 



Again, it is not safe to assume that more fishing produces more 

 fish. In the past an increase in the number of boats fishing has some- 

 times increased the total catch of fish. But as years go on the limita- 

 tion for a number of commercial fisheries is the rate at which the fish 

 can breed and the amount of feed available. Thus it has been pointed 

 out that in times of war and of food shortages, intensive fishing in the 

 North Sea has resulted in a smaller daily catch and in a reduction in 

 the size of fish taken. Even to preserve the present rates of produc- 



