lO ADVANCEMENT OF MARINE SCIENCES 



In the State of Hawaii they had three vessels working out 

 there. One of them they put out of commission entirely, 

 the Manning. The second one they didn't have money to 

 operate, the Smith. She has been donated to the Scripps 

 Institution of Oceanography because the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries didn't have the monej'' to operate it. 



We have the Black Douglas, an old beat-up yacht from 

 prewar days, and she is being used about two-thirds of the 

 time because there isn't money for it. 



Dr. Milner B. Schaefer, Duector of the Inter-American Tropical 

 Tuna Commission and a member of the National Academy of Sciences 

 Committee on Oceanography, testified : 



The Committee on Oceanography recommended construc- 

 tion of 14 new ships for research on marine resources, 7 to 

 replace existing overage and obsolete craft. 



Funds have been appropriated to construct one new vessel. 

 Meanwhile three have been removed from the service of the 

 Bureau of Fisheries, and one other is beiii^ operated with a 

 short crew and lack of adequate maintOTance. It would 

 appear that we are losing ground. 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries presently operates 14 vessels, 

 displacing from 9 to 518 tons, Avith the average displacement 164 

 tons. Of the six ocean-going ships, the oldest is 35 years old, the 

 largest 24 years old. Fom' are used for exploratory fishing, two for 

 biological research. 



Russia, Japan, Canada, South Africa, West Germany, England, 

 Scotland, Norway, and France, all have new and larger fisheries 

 research ships than ours, and Russia and Japan in considerable 

 numbers. 



S. 901 includes the recommendations of the Committee on Ocea- 

 nography that new U.S. ships for fisheries research and exploration 

 be constructed. 



Your Committee concurs with the Committee on Oceanography 

 that our fisheries research and exploratory fleet must be rehabilitated 

 and modernized if the United States is to share in reaping the bounty 

 of seas to assuage tlie needs of a protein-lmngrv world. It must do 

 so even to feed its own. 



There are other implications also in this contest to harvest the 

 riches of the ocean. 



They were expressed in a statement to 3 our Committee signed by 

 10 members of the faculty of the College of Fisheries, University of 

 Washington. In part this statement read: 



The United States cannot afford to sm'render control of 

 the fisheries off its coast to Soviet Russia, or to any other 

 country, fu'st because of the potential direct threat of the 

 presence of large fleets of foreign fishing vessels off our coast, 

 as well as from the aspect of world production of food. 



Further it must be recognized that control of marine fish- 

 eries can be used by Russia to exert economic or political pres- 

 sure on any country which is dependent on marine fisheries. 



Senate bill 901 recognizes the need for the United States 

 to study the ocean and its fisheries. It is especially im- 



