OCEANOGRAPHY AND FISHERIES 



By G. L. Kesteven 



Marine Fisheries Section 



Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 



Rome, Italy 



The contribution of oceanography to fisheries research (which 

 means research in economic and technical fields as well as in biological 

 fields) is to be understood only in terms of the applied character of 

 fisheries science: an effort is made in the following paragraphs to ex- 

 pound the implications of this statement. However, it is desired here to 

 stress a principal consequence of this position, namely that it brings 

 upon the fishery scientist an obligation to exercise a keen discrimina- 

 tion, and to undertake a frequent scrutiny of his activities, to determine 

 whether they will stand a test of their applicability to real fishery 

 problems. 



I. Some Definitions 



The term Indo-Pacific is used in the sense in which it is employed 

 by the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council, namely, to signify the zoogeo- 

 graphic area occupied by the warm-water marine fauna which is var- 

 iously described as Indo-Pacific, Indo-West-Pacific (Ekman), and Indo- 

 Australian (Weber and de Beaufort), the core of which is constituted 

 by the Indonesian Archipelago. The term oceanography is taken to be 

 the correlative of limnology and thus with that term to comprehend 

 the whole of the scientific work bearing upon the hydrosphere with 

 biological objective, or of biological use. This definition derives au- 

 thority from many works from among which perhaps that monumental, 

 and already classical work "The Oceans", by Sverdrup, Johnson and 

 Fleming, may be chosen for citation. The validity of regarding oceanog- 

 raphy as correlative of limnology may be found in the comprehensive- 

 ness of the latter, as set out in such standard periodicals as the Revue 

 der Internationale Gesammte Hydrobiologie and also in the standard 

 text by Welch, which uses that term as title. 



It is to be stipulated that we reject the restriction imposed upon the 

 term by some workers who regard it as concerned only with physical 

 and chemical features of the oceans, and even as especially the pre- 

 occupation of naval research establishments. Whilst, of course, there can 

 be no challenge of their right to choose this usage, their attention may 



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