320 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



Mr. Paul. I Avould like very much to have him come up an answer 

 any questions. 



Mr. DiNGELL. I think Mr. Lennon would like to know how that 

 program is coming. I know I would. Come up and tell us briefly 

 what you are dong, what your budget is, and how you are progressing. 



Mr. Paul. This is Mr. Swartz, a New Englander, who has only been 

 really assigned in charge of this program since last February. I in- 

 serted for the use of the committee a copy of a paper Mr. Swartz has 

 just prepared on this program. I think j^ou will find it very inter- 

 esting. 



Mr. DiNGELL. Would you like to tell us briefly, Mr. Swartz, what 

 has happened in the program, your budget, your plans, some programs 

 you have in mind ? 



STATEMENT OE ALBERT H. SWARTZ, ASSISTANT CHIEF, BRANCH 

 OE FISHERY RESEARCH, DIVISION OF SPORT FISHERIES, BUREAU 

 OF SPORT FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE 



Mr. Swartz. Late in August last year we acquired an Army hospi- 

 tal at Fort Hancock, N.J. We have been in the process of converting 

 it in the past few months to make office space, laboratory space, 

 shop, and so on, as a center for marine game fish research on the 

 Atlantic coast. Even though we have been operating for less than a 

 year, we have several small programs underway already. 



Two of the most important, in our opinion, are : the national sur- 

 vey of marine game fishing, which is being done under contract 

 with the Bureau of the Census in connection with the national survey 

 of hunting and fishing to give us a national picture of the salt water 

 catch in six broad geographical regions in the United States. These 

 are the north Atlantic area^ north of Cape Cod, the middle Atlantic 

 area from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras, the south Atlantic from 

 Cape Hatteras down and including Florida, the gulf coast area, 

 the south Pacific area, south of Point Conception, and the north 

 Pacific area. When this is completed, we will have a picture of the 

 important species that are caught and their frequency in the fisher- 

 man's creel. 



We also have some good estimates, I believe, of the total effort. We 

 have some preliminary data already. Mr. Paul mentioned it. That 

 is, that for 1960 there were 80 million man-days of fishing in salt 

 water. This represents an increase of about 35 percent since 1955. 



Another undertaking that we have engaged in now is the survey of 

 facilities. We think that this sort of thing in combination with the 

 survey of catch and effort will help to define this marine game fish re- 

 source. It will involve cataloging and describing the facilities along, 

 all of the coasts for marine game fishing — the piers, the jetties, the 

 banks, the marinas, the number of boats, that sort of thing. We hope 

 to prepare a national atlas containing this information when it is 

 completed. 



In connection with this activity, we hope to develop a methodology 

 for estimating the sport fishing catch, periodically. We think a terri- 

 ble gap exists now in the amount of fish that are caught by recreational 

 fisheiTnen. For some species and in some places this catch exceeds the 

 commercial catch. For example, in Great South Bay on Long Island 

 3 million flukes are taken in 3 months in the summer just by anglers. 



