1140 
years of practical experience in salmon and trout hatching and rearing has been 
had, which, in the last thirty years in particular has been on a large scale and on 
a continually increasing solid base of both science and technology. Nutritional, 
disease, and handling problems are well in hand. Enough experience has been 
had with selective breeding to know that these fishes are genetically plastic and 
that improved breeds can be developed. The market is so strong that it would 
accept a doubling of production sooner than it could be had through this means. 
Increased salmon yields could be a good foreign exchange earner both in Japan 
and Western Europe for any surplus that the United States market would not 
accept. The economics even appear to be practical for private enterprise to do 
this in some places, if legal impediments could be removed. 
This does not appear to be likely in the near future. Salmon are deeply 
engrained emotionally in the social structure of the Pacific Northwest. The most 
efficient means of harvest have been legislated out of existence in order to 
spread the wealth among inefficient small scale fishermen. In all the states the 
waters are public and by law cannot be diverted to private use in the manner 
required for such fish farming. Steelhead trout, which show particular promise 
for such large scale fish farming, are reserved jealously for recreational fishing. 
Competition between remaining commercial gears keeps the political fires so 
hot that none of these matters seem practically capable of change. This is a pity. 
Of all the fisheries none is so ripe for the application of limited entry, or 
reversion to private ownership, lease of resource control, or other similar device 
to improve net economic yield. The case of salmon gill-netters in the Frazer 
River and Puget Sound is particularly in point. No Director or Minister of Fish- 
eries in Washington or Canada has quite the political bravura to tie the bell on 
this eat. 
In any event there is no reason to expect that the value yield of the salmon 
fisheries will do anything except trend upward, and it is likely that the volume 
yield will do so slowly also. If even reasonabe economic efficiency could be 
restored bit by bit through slight modification of the existing maze of regulations 
covering the salmon fisheries the net economic yield from them could be increased 
enormously and quickly. There is scope for substantial increase in volume of 
yield through improved resource management practices, and this could be quite 
large if modification in socio-economic legislation would permit the initiation of 
privately managed fish farming of salmon and the sea-run trouts. 
(11) Tuna.—Five species of tuna support the tuna fisheries of the United 
States. They are yellowfin, skipjack, albacore, bluefin and big-eye. Albacore are 
caught off the west coast of the United States from Baja California to British 
Columbia during the summer and fall by small vessels. They provide 30 to 50 
million pounds per year. Bluefin tuna are caught off Southern California and 
Baja California. They provide 20 to 30 million pounds per year. Big-eye are 
eaught to a modest degree in the eastern tropical Pacific and until recently all 
included in the yellowfin statistics. Small quantities of skipjack and yellowfin 
are landed in Hawaii, and of skipjack and bluefin on the east coast. The rest 
consist of yellowfin and skipjack landed almost entirely in Southern California 
and Puerto Rico, and caught mostly in the eastern tropical and sub-tropical 
Pacific. 
The commercial tuna fishery started in Southern California in 1907 with a 
small amount of albacore canning. There was no market for it and a new one 
had to be created. This has gone on steadily. By 1935 the catches required for 
this purpose exceeded 100 million pounds for the first time. In 1967 they exceeded 
400 million pounds (412) for the first time. 
This fishery has,been in economic trouble for most of its life and yet it has 
grown in this period to be ordinarily next to manhaden in volume of U.S. land- 
ings and next to shrimp (or salmon) in value of U.S. landings. It has long been 
the largest in volume and value of canned fish items. In 1925 albacore disappeared 
from Southern California and the industry had to shift to canning the tropical 
tunas (yellowfin and skipjack), which did not even come as far north as Cali- 
fornia in commercial quantities in most years. This led to the construction of 
larger vessels which by 1928 were fishing as far south as the equator. This 
brought spoilage problems which ice would not solve and means of freezing at 
sea had to be developed. By 1988 this problem was satisfactorily solved, and the 
fleet kept increasing in size and range. In 1941 the Navy took over most of the 
large vessels for service in the Central Pacific. 
At the end of the Pacific War the fleet surged ahead again and soon encountered 
two new problems. From then on to the present time it has been molested by 
