IX. A PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION AND 

 EXPANSION 



Previous sections describe lost opportunities 

 difficult to match in American economic history. 

 In the years since World War II, demand for fishery 

 products on a worldwide basis has expanded 

 steadily with respect to both quantity and variety. 

 During the same period, U.S. consumers, though 

 using approximately the same quantities of fish 

 and shellfish for direct consumption per capita, are 

 using very much larger quantities of fishery 

 products in the form of meal and oO for use in 

 livestock and poultry feeding operations and for 

 other industrial purposes. This rapid growth in 

 industrial use of fishery products, coupled with an 

 increasing population, has produced a very sub- 

 stantial increase in market demand for all types of 

 fishery products within the United States. 



During the same period, the technological level 

 of vessels and equipment used for marine fishing 

 has undergone revolutionary changes. Progress in 

 this respect has been very uneven, but some of the 

 traditionally important fishing nations, such as 

 Norway, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada, 

 together with important new participants, such as 

 the U.S.S.R., West Germany and Peru, have 

 increased greatly the range and sweep efficiency of 

 virtually all types of fishing equipment. In addi- 

 tion to improvements in equipment, there has 

 been a notable expansion in the effort to coordi- 

 nate oceanographic research and data accumula- 

 tion with the deployment of mobile fleets of 

 fishing vessels. No nation has yet achieved all that 

 can be expected in this direction, but many, 

 particularly the Soviet Union, have made real 

 progress in integrating oceanic parameters, the 

 abundance of fish, the behavior of fish, and 

 construction and use of the appropriate kinds of 

 fishing gear. These developments are reflected in a 

 growth rate in landings on worldwide basis in 

 excess of six per cent per year since 1950. 



During this period of burgeoning demand and 

 improvements in the efficiency, range, and variety 

 of fishing units, many segments of the American 

 flag fishery have been virtually stagnant. Total 

 landings have remained almost unchanged (four to 

 five bilhon pounds) for the past three decades, and 

 only the development of a substantial industrial 

 fishery has prevented an actual decUne in landings. 

 To some extent, this reflects full or even excessive 



utilization of some of the more valuable species 

 found in United States waters such as salmon, 

 halibut, some types of shellfish, and menhaden. 



The latest and most authoritative estimates of 

 potential yields from the waters adjacent to U.S. 

 coasts show that the harvest is no more than 

 one-tenth of the potentially marketable fish and 

 shellfish available in areas where U.S. flag fisher- 

 men should have a significant advantage, in terms 

 of availabihty, over foreign operators. Even more 

 striking is the estimate that foreign flag fishermen 

 are now taking from waters of the continental 

 shelf adjoining the United States as much fish as 

 U.S. flag fishermen are taking. The fact that 

 foreign fleets are exploiting lower valued species 

 points up even more clearly the gap in competitive 

 efficiency. 



There are, fortunately, a few bright spots. U.S. 

 processing and marketing firms have played a 

 major role in developing sources of supply in other 

 parts of the world, and, in a real sense, this may be 

 regarded as part of the total U.S. fishery effort. 

 U.S. tuna and shrimp fishermen, using equipment 

 and techniques second to none, have maintained a 

 vigorous competitive stance, even though U.S. 

 processing and marketing firms have required 

 substantially increased imports as well as domestic 

 production of these items. On the whole, however, 

 growth in demand for fishery products in the 

 United States since 1950 has been met from 

 foreign sources. 



The total Government effort directed at en- 

 largement of the base of knowledge necessary to 

 exploit fisheries profitably, and at direct develop- 

 ment and management of existing fisheries, 

 appears to be inadequate. It is fragmented between 

 Federal and State agencies; it is funded at levels 

 that do not permit the responsible agencies to 

 mount bold or imaginative new programs; and the 

 funds available appear to have been distributed, in 

 response to traditional emphasis on biological 

 research and to political pressures, in a manner 

 that does not provide proper balance. 



Exploratory work designed to provide the types 

 of information on location, distribution, and 

 potential yield that would stimulate private invest- 

 ment has been undertaken for only a few species. 

 This is evidenced by the fact that these key factors 

 can be quantified with reasonable accuracy for no 

 more than a handful of our major fishery re- 

 sources. For many underutilized and latent stocks. 



vn-51 



