Marine Science Affairs 



obsolescent equipment, low income, and low returns on investment. The 

 average age of the U.S. fishing vessel in 1966 was 20.3 years. Only four new 

 vessels have been added to the Boston offshore trawler fleet in the past 16 

 years, and the average Pacific coast halibut vessel was built 36 years ago. 

 The vessel costs to Canadian fishermen competing for stocks off U.S. coasts 

 are often one-half the comparable costs to our fishermen. 



Many interrelated factors contribute to these problems, including : 



— a tangle of Federal, State, and local laws and regulations, which were 

 originally designed to conserve species, reduce conflicts among 

 multiple users of the coastal waters or among groups of commercial 

 fishermen, or to protect certain limited interests, but which have 

 increased costs and inhibited efficiency of fishing by retarding appli- 

 cation of contemporary technology and limiting fishing areas; ^ 

 — more fishermen participating in some fisheries than necessary to make 

 the maximum sustainable annual catches, with the result that the 

 share of each participant is reduced ; 

 — fragmentation within the harvesting segment of the industry into 

 entrepreneurial units too small to finance technological improvements 

 and to minimize the impact of the vagaries of supply and demand; 

 — ^high cost of building vessels in U.S. shipyards ^ and high insurance 

 rates resulting in large measure from the liberal interpretation of the 

 laws concerning vessel owner liability for crew injuries; 

 — separation of harvesting and marketing interests, with the fisherman 

 often unable to influence the market significantly and stimulate de- 

 mand for many readily available species, thus relieving increasing 

 pressures on those limited stocks where a growing demand is causing 

 a decreasing yield per unit of fishing eff"ort ; 

 — inadequate knowledge of fish stock distribution, abundance, behavior, 

 and fishing conditions and related limitations on the number of 

 species being caught, the areas being fished, and the fishing methods 

 being used; and 

 — high vessel casualty rates, resulting in loss of life and property and 

 high insurance rates.^ 

 One major eff"ect of all these forces working against improved efficiency 

 in the harvesting of fish has been a reduction in the average output per U.S. 



^ These laws and regulations are summarized in the Council contract report "The 

 Land-Sea Interface of the Coastal Zone of the U.S." 



*A 1793 law (46 USC 251) in effect requires that vessels over five net tons en- 

 gaged in our fisheries must be built in U.S. shipyards. A 1966 subsidy law, intended 

 to offset the high costs of construction in the United States, has not had a significant 

 impact and at the same time reduces incentives to lower construction costs. 



^ A Study of Cost Benefits and Effectiveness of the Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast 

 Guard, May 1, 1968, identified fishing vessels as having the poorest safety record of 

 any group of U.S. vessels. 



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