tion on the location, spatial and temporal distribu- 

 tion, and yield potential of more than a few major 

 fish stocks found in U.S. coastal waters. 



The panel finds it even more difficult to 

 understand the extraordinarily low level of activity 

 in ocean engineering and gear research and de- 

 velopment. It has long been recognized that U.S. 

 fishing operations were steadily losing ground to 

 more sophisticated foreign competition with lower 

 unit costs. While some of this could be attributed 

 to lower labor costs in foreign fleets, the major gap 

 between U.S. and foreign fishery development has 

 developed in fishing operations that are highly 

 capital-intensive, the very type of operation in 

 which the United States should enjoy a compara- 

 tive advantage, particularly in its own coastal 

 waters. 



There can be no doubt that U.S. fishing vessels 

 lag behind their more aggressive international 

 competition in vessel design, fishing equipment, 

 fish detection equipment, propulsion systems, and 

 the systematic analysis of deployment and har- 

 vesting methods. Yet BCF funding of programs to 

 improve conventional fishing techniques and ex- 

 plore new methods has been so small that only a 

 handful of projects could be undertaken. 



Many of these would not have produced the 

 excellent results they did except for persistent 

 scrounging by project directors and contributions 

 of equipment from industry. Moreover, the very 

 small budget now available for investigation of 

 detection, harvesting, and related techniques is 

 divided among the various regional offices to a 

 degree that keeps most of them below critical 

 levels for efficient operation. 



The panel prefers not to regard this problem as 

 one of overemphasis on biological research or the 

 scientific aspects of fishery investigation generally. 

 A high degree of technical competence has been 

 achieved in these areas by BCF, and it is vital to 

 any overall program of fishery development and 

 management that it be maintained. Far from being 

 excessive, the funding provided for such work also 

 needs expansion. Simply, there is a strong argu- 

 ment for a matching competence in exploration, 

 technological development, and ocean engineering. 

 BCF must be prepared and competent to provide 

 the U.S. fishermen with the background informa- 

 tion and the technical capacity to operate effi- 

 ciently in exploiting the stocks available in his own 

 coastal waters. 



BCF has also been sadly deficient in its abUity 

 to deal with economic problems. Ours is a market- 

 oriented economy, and the success of any Federal 

 fishery program must be measured in large part by 

 its contribution to the output, employment, and 

 net earnings position in private enterprises engaged 

 in fishing, marketing, and processing. Services 

 rendered by the Bureau in monitoring and inter- 

 preting developments in these areas have been 

 negligible until recently. Moreover, the Bureau's 

 participation in formulating international fishery 

 policies demands economic staff work of a high 

 degree of professional competence. 



Only in the past five years has BCF recognized 

 this deficiency and made a determined effort to 

 recruit and provide adequate organizational place- 

 ment of professionally trained economists with 

 experience in fishery matters. The panel regards 

 the achievements of the Division of Economics 

 over the past few years as clear evidence of the 

 need to expand this type of work sharply. The 

 Bureau's economists are now beginning to lay a 

 solid groundwork of analytical and empirical 

 background for the deployment of BCF resources 

 and to establish a framework for current economic 

 analysis within which day-to-day problems can be 

 handled effectively. 



The need for such work is pointed up by the 

 inadequacies of the statistical data base on which 

 many National fishery programs must be based. As 

 might be expected, the deficiencies make it impos- 

 sible at the present time to assess the economic 

 health of any segment of the U.S. fishing industry 

 or to forecast the economic results of alternative 

 programs without detailed ad hoc efforts to 

 develop the necessary factual background, case by 

 case. Statistical information on the processing and 

 marketing sectors of the economy, particularly 

 with respect to prices, wages, and net earnings, is 

 almost entirely lacking, except for a few major 

 segments of the industry. Even in the more 

 traditional types of data, there are substantial 

 gaps. Thus, the coverage of landings, and— in 

 particular— fishing effort, is still very spotty. To 

 some extent, this situation reflects the dependence 

 of BCF on State agencies for collection of primary 

 data. Since the States have their own reasons for 

 gathering statistical information and their own 

 ideas as to the relative weight such activities 

 should carry in their own budgets, the resulting 

 data are of very uneven coverage and reliability. 



VII-47 



