1950 I960 



Dota from Dept. of Interior 



1970 



1980 



1990 



2000 



FiGUEE 6. — JJ.S. market for fishery products. 



their estimates vary from a highly conservative four to more than 

 forty times the present catch. Intensified research on this question is 

 clearly needed as a basis for rational management of the resource. 

 Fish are not uniformly distributed throughout the seas. Most 

 species seem to be concentrated on continental shelves. Evidence 

 suggests, however, that further exploration of fish populations, partic- 

 ularly for species not now widely used, may modify this present under- 

 standing. Figure 7 shows the quantities of fish taken from major 

 fishing areas in 1965. 



The U.S. Fishing Industry 



In 1965 the United States ranked fifth as a fishing nation, behind 

 Peru, Japan, mainland China, and the Soviet Union. Figure 8 shows 

 the trends from 1938 to 1965 except for mainland China for which no 

 figures have been reported since the rough estimates of 1960. The 6 

 billion pounds landed annually by American vessels constitutes about 

 one-twentieth of the world catch. 



In comparison with the industrially organized Soviet fishing activi- 

 ties, our own fishing industry is more fragmented. As of 1964 there 

 were 128,000 U.S. fishermen operating about 65,000 boats of less than 

 5 tons, and 12,000 larger vessels. They supplied fish for processing 

 by about 57,000 employees in 4,000 establishments throughout the 

 country. 



Ninety-five percent of all our fishing vessels are less than 100 tons. 

 A comparison of U.S. fishing vessels with those of Japan and Spain 



47 



