1183 
Some of the situations of the specific United States fisheries are discussed in 
the following chapter. 
CHAPTER III.—SPECIFIC U.S.-FLAG FISHERIES 
Table I contains the annual catch of U.S. flag fishing per year from 1926 through 
1967, their annual value, and the average price per pound paid the fishermen in 
the particular year. Table 2 gives the relative volume of the catch by species, or 
species groupings, in 1966, (the last year of full published record) as well as the 
year (and amount of catch) which contained the highest yield for that species 
or grouping. Table 3 arranges these data for 1966 in terms of value. 
These three Tables illustrate in a bare bones manner the recent history of 
U.S. flag fishing and its current status but the data thus unadorned do not illu- 
minate history, nor describe status adequately to form the basis for policy or to 
idicate the elements of a strategy which would improve the current status. 
While the annual total catches given in Table I describe an almost static 
condition in the U.S. flag fisheries for the thirty year period from 1934 to 1967 
the fishery, to the contrary, has been, and is, exceedingly dynamic. Species, and 
species groups, have come into the fishery from time to time. Some have continu- 
ously grown in the fishery. Some have waxed and waned over the years. Some 
have grown great in production and the faded out of the fishery entirely. Only by 
an understanding of what has happened to the major warps and woofs, and the 
reasons for these occurrences, can the existing fabric be understood or a more 
perfect one designed. Some of the more important elements of these exceedingly 
dynamic movements are briefly set out below. 
(1) The Pacific Sardine or Pilchard.—The first species to be considered illus- 
trates one of these points well. The Pacific sardine began to form the basis of a 
commercial fisheries in southern California after the turn of the century. Under 
the stimulus of World War I it grew in size, chiefly to provide canned food for 
the then existing emergency. It reached a high level of 161 million pounds of 
yield in 1918. After a brief recession at war’s end the fishery grew again under 
the residual stimulus of the canned sardine market that had developed, and 
the new stimulus of the chicken industry that had found fish meal to be an 
efficient additive to chicken feed to produce eggs and meat cheaply. The fishery 
grew steadily, became important in British Columbia, was started in Oregon and 
Washington in 1935, and in 1936 reached the peak of its production, when it 
contributed 1,502 million pounds to the United States fish catch and 1,593 million 
pounds to the entire Pacific coast catch including Canada. It was the largest 
single species fishery developed by the United States to that time . 
The catch decreased each year from that date. In 1948 the British Columbia 
fishery (which had begun in 1918) ceased completely. 1949 was the last fishing 
season for sardine in both Oregon and Washington. The Northern California 
(San Francisco) fishery stopped in 1951. The Monterey fishery, which had har- 
vested as much as 500 million pounds in the war season of 1941-42 (and sup- 
ported famed “Cannery Row’’) was out of business completely by 1960, having 
subsisted for the last few years on fish trucked from Southern California. The 
Southern California fishery dragged on yet for a time, gravitating down to a 
harvest of less than one million pounds per year, taken incidentally to other 
fisheries. At last in 1967 a five year moratorium was legally placed on any 
landings of this species in California aside from those caught accidentally in 
other catches. A fishery yielding in the neighborhood of 30 million pounds per 
year remains in nearby Mexico, mostly supported by a southern race that had 
not been much affected by the California and other west coast fishery. It is 
probably now being over fished by Mexico. 
There was no managerial system available with which to apply the available 
scientific knowledge and there still is not. The Federal Government assumed, 
nor asked for, no regulatory responsibility. Regulatory responsibility in the State 
of California was split between the California Fish and Game Commission and 
the State Legislature, and it still is. The Pacific States Marine Fishery Commis- 
sion, whose establishment was strongly motivated by the crisis in this: declining 
coastal fishery, had no regulatory power. 
By 1946 the situation was so critical, and somewhat puzzling, that the 
remaining industry sought increased research on the problem by the Federal 
and State of California Governments and the University of California, includ- 
ing new taxes on the fish catches to help support the research. The expanded 
research program began in 1948 and has continued every year since in exemplary 
