participants in marine sport fishing, the natural 

 tendency for saltwater and fresh water sport 

 fishermen to band together in common interests, 

 and the dollar magnitude of the supporting service 

 industry involved make sport fishing a potent 

 political force in the coastal and Great Lakes 

 States. 



3. Sources of Conflict 



It is apparent that the roots of conflict between 

 sport fishermen and other users of estuarine and 

 inshore waters are numerous. It is equally clear 

 that biological knowledge of the relevant popula- 

 tions involved is far from complete, even for some 

 of the most important sport and commercial 

 species. The result is a degree of confusion, 

 ignorance, public misunderstanding, and emotional 

 involvement that adds up to conflicts far more 

 severe and extensive than would be expected if the 

 facts were more widely known. For example, the 

 violent objections of both commercial and sport 

 fishing interests to seismic exploration by petro- 

 leum firms turned out to be largely unjustified 

 after careful studies by fisheries scientists in 

 cooperation with the industries involved. In some 

 States, sportsmen have pressed for legislation 

 prohibiting commercial use of species with little or 

 no evidence of any adverse effect on recreational 

 usage. In others, commercial fishery interests 

 continue to use (and sometimes to overfish) 

 species in areas and at times when they would 

 make a greater economic contribution if reserved 

 for sport fishing. 



Part of the controversy can be traced directly 

 to the absence of data sufficiently refined to 

 distinguish the areas of real conflict from those 

 that have no basis in fact. Even in the former, 

 much can be done to minimize the problem. In 

 many cases, adjustment of sport and commercial 

 fishing seasons or areas to eliminate competition 

 between incompatible types of equipment can 

 resolve conflict to the net economic benefit of 

 both groups. 



D. A Program for Resolution 



Although better communication and better 

 scientific knowledge will go far to miniinize 

 urmecessary and distinctive controversy, the ines- 



capable fact remains that some fish and shellfish, 

 valuable to both sport and commercial harvesters, 

 are fully exploited; any increased utilization by 

 one group must be at the expense of the other. 



It might be noted, parenthetically, that this 

 situation is common throughout our entire econ- 

 omy; for example, desirable business locations 

 and unusually gifted personnel are always in short 

 supply, and would be useful to many different 

 kinds of employers. In general, the market mech- 

 anism tends to sort out with reasonable efficiency 

 the right factors of production for the right task. 

 Each tends to be employed where it will make the 

 greatest contribution to total production and 

 therefore earn the highest return. Unfortunately, 

 this mechanism simply will not function in the 

 case of competition among sport and conunercial 

 fisheries, since the market provides no comparable 

 valuation of recreational usage of the resource. 

 What is required is careful analysis, on a case by 

 case basis, of the economic and non-economic 

 values involved in the alternative usages and a 

 subsequent allocation based, however roughly, on 

 the principles that the general public benefit 

 should be maximized. This task sounds more 

 formidable than it is in many cases. What is needed 

 is not a precise determination of dollar values, but 

 rather a "better than— worse than" comparison, 

 and these are frequently available from rather 

 straight-forward analytical procedures. Moreover, 

 it is rarely true that use of a given resource must 

 be entirely sport or entirely commercial. 



Virtually all responsibility for management of 

 sport fisheries is vested in the individual States at 

 present. The role of the Federal Government is 

 limited to research, technical assistance, and other 

 service functions. Moreover, the Bureau of Sport 

 Fisheries and Wildlife's resource management and 

 investigation program includes management of 

 wildlife refuges, wildUfe research, and regulation 

 of migratory birds and game. Less than 10 per cent 

 of its budget for these purposes is directed toward 

 fisheries, and an even smaller amount is spent on 

 saltwater and anadromous species. 



As a result, areas of overlap with the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries are not large, and duplica- 

 tion of effort has been largely avoided by effective 

 coordination at both the top (through the office 

 of the Commissioner for Fish and Wildlife) and at 

 the operating level. 



VII-35 



