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one that should receive attention by Congress, and that is the rehabili- 
tation of the domestic commercial fisheries of the United States. 
The Commission’s recommendations on this are quoted on page 2 
of my statement. I agree wholeheartedly with these three recommen- 
dations. 
The first is that the major objective should be that of obtaining the 
largest net economic return consistent with the biological capabilities 
of the stocks. 
The second recommendation is to reduce excess fishing effort, and 
I think this is critical. 
And the third recommendation is that the Federal Government be 
given statutory authority to assume regulatory jurisdiction under 
certain conditions and where necessary. 
The economic condition of fisheries is, as we all know, in a bad state. 
To me, one of the primary reasons for this sad state of affairs is the 
absence of exclusive rights of property; rights which are available in 
almost all other industries that attract American enterprise. 
Under these conditions, where there are no exclusive rights of prop- 
erty and where there is open access to the stock, the fishery tends to 
attract far more fishermen than is desirable or economically efficient. 
On page 4 I give some estimates of the amount of economic waste. 
For example, a study by Crutchfield and Pontecorvo, indicates that 
the same amount of Pacific salmon could be taken with $50 million 
less vessel and labor than is now being used annually. In the past 25 
years the Alaska salmon catch has actually decreased by more than 
a third while the number of fishermen has more than doubled. 
The reasons for this is that under the condition of open access any 
surplus or excess profit is shareable, and attracts more and more fish- 
ermen into the industry until the industry operates where total costs 
and revenues are equal and the excess shareable ‘profit is diminished 
or decreased to zero. 
To quote the Commission on this, it says that, “Until and unless it 
becomes possible to reduce the amount of gear to the minimum needed 
to take the permitted catch, economic waste, widespread violation of 
regulations and a threat to the very existence of the industry will 
remain.” 
To me then it is critical that we adopt some means and some tech- 
niques for controlling access to fisheries, for providing to a satisfac- 
tory degree the kind of property rights and exclusive rights that are 
available to almost all other industries in the United States. 
The problem comes, and I am sure that you all recognize this, in 
that the establishment of controls on entry will exclude some and 
permit others to operate. 
Mr. Kerru. On what kind of fisheries did you say ? 
Dr. Curisry. These are open-access fisheries. Almost all the fisheries 
of the United States are under these conditions. There are certain 
fisheries such as the sedentary fisheries, oysters, and others, where 
property rights do pertain. 
The problem comes in reducing the amount of effort in those fish- 
eries where fishermen already have vested interests, have already in- 
vested their time and labor and capital. In these situations, it is very 
difficult to remove the superfluous fishermen. This is recognized by the 
Commission. There are ways and means of achieving this, but inevit- 
