National Goals in Oceanography 



11 



same the present fish catch would supply 10 

 percent of the protein needs of the world's popu- 

 lation. In fact, it may supply more, being more 

 highly favored by those with lower standards of 

 living whose per capita protein intake is less than 

 average. An estimate generally accepted as con- 

 servative puts the annual catch which could be 

 sustained indefinitely without depleting the stock 

 at something like 200 million metric tons of fish 

 a year, or about five times the present take. More 

 optimistic estimates range to many times this 

 value. All agree, however, that vastly more infor- 

 mation must be obtained on the ecology of fish 

 populations and their distribution than is now 

 available and that much more efficient manage- 

 ment techniques must be developed and inter- 

 national agreements reached if even the lowest 

 of these estimates of the potential food harvest of 

 the oceans is to be realized. 



The motive for making the necessary effort 

 soon gains much of its strength from two consid- 

 erations. One is that many of the fish presently 

 most valued are already showing signs of over- 

 fishing, and the other is that the major alternative, 

 intensified agriculture, seems promising mainly 

 in land areas of rich nations while many starving 

 nations border the seas which, in principle at 

 least, are accessible to all. 



The United States is a member of eight active 

 international fisheries commissions in which a total 

 of 20 other countries also participate. These com- 

 missions and their dates of establishment are: 

 Pacific halibut, 1924; Pacific salmon, 1937; interna- 

 tional whaling, 1948; inter-american tropical tuna, 

 1949; Northwest Atlantic fisheries, 1949; interna- 

 tional North Pacific fisheries, 1952; Great Lake 

 fisheries, 1955; North Pacific fur seal, 1957. As 

 world fishing develops, the catch seems to be dou- 

 bling every 12 years. More fisheries are becoming 

 mature and require close supervision. Under con- 

 sideration for control are the yellowfin tuna of the 

 eastern tropical Pacific and certain other fishery 

 stocks. Both for the economic benefit of the fisher- 

 men who see their livelihoods at risk and for the 

 benefit of the populations who need what the seas 

 can offer, learning how to find and exploit alter- 

 nate species as well as how to increase the safe yield 

 from present species is of vital importance. 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries is tenta- 

 tively planning to spend approximately $173 

 million over the next 10 years on programs which 



will contribute directly to better management of 

 fish resources in the sea. Although approximately 

 $69 million of this is to be devoted to the study of 

 species which are now entirely or predominantly 

 the province of the American fisherman, even 

 those are bound up in the broad ecology of the 

 oceans of which man is becoming the chief pred- 

 ator and for which he must be prepared to be 

 accountable as competition for the food resources 

 in the world ocean stiffens. Another $185 million 

 will go to basic research, strengthening oceano- 

 graphic science while laying a much needed foun- 

 dation for more effective applied work on fish re- 

 sources management. This is in acknowledgment 

 of the importance of knowledge of ocean circula- 

 tion and vertical transport to prediction of the 

 distribution of fish populations and general oce- 

 anic ecology. 



The Smithsonian Institution plans to spend 

 about $25 million over the decade in describing 

 organisms — their abundance, their life cycles, 

 and their distribution in the ocean. The Smith- 

 sonian effort will contribute significantly to our 

 understanding of both beneficial and harmful 

 biological processes in the ocean. Although the 

 Smithsonian may charter vessels for brief periods 

 of time for work in remote areas, most of its col- 

 lecting will be performed on ocean-going vessels 

 of other agencies. 



The health of the fish and other life which in- 

 habit the ocean may be affected by poisons intro- 

 duced by man in various ways; man himself may 

 then be affected when he consumes contaminated 

 seafood. He may also be affected by these poisons 

 directly. Since the testing of nuclear weapons 

 began after the war, the people of the already un- 

 easy world have become increasingly concerned 

 about the radioactive contamination of their 

 environment. Disposal of low-level radioactive 

 wastes by AEC in both the Atlantic and the Pac- 

 ific Oceans since 1946, and by the British in the 

 Irish Sea, has made it necessary to study ulti- 

 mate consequences as the packages in which they 

 are contained corrode through over the years 

 and even the sluggish circulation in the ocean 

 abysses eventually disperses them widely over 

 the world. Nuclear reactors power a large number 

 of submarines and an increasing number of sur- 

 face ships, and are being developed to provide 

 both electric power and propulsion for satellites 

 and space vehicles. Appraisal of operational and 

 accidental hazards that these devices represent 



