CANADIAN VIEW AT CONFERENCE
Fish Catches Can Be Doubled
In contrast to their British colleagues, who foresee declining catch levels, Canadian fisheries scientists believe that "the gross potential for kinds of fish which can be used today is at least twice what is now caught off our shores."
The Canadian viewpoint was presented at the North American Fisheries Conference, held at Washington, DC, in May under joint sponsorship of the National Fisheries Institute of the US, Fisheries Council of Canada and Camera Nacional de la Industria Pesquera of Mexico.
To justify his claim that intensified fishing effort could double the catch off the North American coasts, Dr. P. A. Larkin, director of the Nanaimo Biological Station, pointed out that in 1963, Canada and the US together took only one million of the total 2.8
million ton catch from the Northwest Atlantic area controlled by the International North West Atlantic Fisheries Commission.
"There seems to be every prospect that the annual catch from the area can be further increased by harder fishing of the species now taken and by further diversification into species not now utilised," he said.
Dr. Larkin noted that a similar situation existed off the North Pacific coast, where the Soviet Union and Japan took approximately 850,000 tons of groundfish fish from the Bering Sea in 1961 while the US and Canadian catch was confined to less than 3,000 tons of halibut.
"In recent years, the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska have produced substantial quantities of ocean perch, enough to account for 10 to 30 percent of world production
of redfish. Nine tenths of this catch in the past year was made perhaps by countries other than Canada and the United States he asserted.
SPECIES LISTED
As species capable of greater exploitation, Dr. Larkin listed:
Herring —The herring catch, which now accounted for 30 percent of North American production, "could be greatly increased off almost all our coasts." In particular, herring off Alaska and the Canadian east coast, anchov-ies off California, threadfins in the Gulf of Mexico, argentine and sandlance off the Canadian east coast offered possibilities for developing fisheries.
Hake—Large quantities of hake on both east and west coasts were available for exploitation, with mid-water trawling perhaps the best method.
Robichaud Cites Problems But Offers Little Practical
Federal fisheries minister H. J. Robichaud advanced some sound arguments for wider international fisheries agreements but failed to support them with any specific proposals when he addressed the North American Fisheries Conference.
Distant water fishing fleets capable of exploiting fish stocks far from their home ports, he said, posed "a serious challenge to the world's as yet inadequate organi-
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sation for international fisheries research and regulation."
The first step toward wise use of fisheries resources, nationally and internationally, he continued, must be intensive research on stocks. The second step was to formulate regulations taking into account the scientific findings. The final step was to enforce them.
He cited North Pacific fisheries agreements to which the US and Canada were signatories as examples of what coordinated research and regulation could accomplish.
In the broader international field, he used as examples the International Commission for North West Atlantic Fisheries which brought together 11 countries, and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, which had advanced to the stage of formulating proposed conservation measures.
"We are all aware of other regional international bodies which have promoted research on fisheries resources and are tackling the problem of formulating regulations which would be effective in
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maintaining the resource and, at the same time, acceptable to member nations often having diverse interests," he declared.
But, apart from references to the need for "acceptable compromises," he made no suggestion as to how they might be reached.
COMMITTEE ARGUMENT
An echo of the Federal-Provincial Committee's report recommending compulsory arbitration of fishing disputes in the BC fishing industry crept into Robi-chaud's comparison of fishery with forestry and other natural resources.
He contended that "fish stocks must usually be classed as corn-property resources and, unlike the farmer or the lumberman, the fisherman cannot usually have private control of that part of the resource which he uses."
This was one of tne arguments used by the Federal-Provincial Committee to support compulsory arbitration.
Shellfish—"Many shrimp and clam potentials remain unexploit-ed, and a great variety of species which are used in some parts of the world are still untouched along most of our shores."
Dr. Larkin pointed out that "from the viewpoint of potentials, it would seem wise to expect increases in total production but not necessarily from the species we have traditionally fished or are now fishing."
STUDY NEEDED
Some species, he conceded, were being exploited at rates which were not consistent with maintaining the maximum sustainable yield. This meant that scientists had to examine the consequences of greater rates of fishing on a larger number of species
The problem was that, as yet, there was no generally accepted theory to explain the effects of fishing on any given pair of species that might be related as predator and prey or as compet itors.
Since as many as several hundred species might be involved in such interrelationships, marine science was on the threshhold of some "exciting new experiences."
In Dr. Larkin's view, the world's oceans possessed an annual production potential of protein foods adequate for a tenfold increase in the present world population of three billion people. In "the vast watery factory that converts sunshine into food," he declared, potential annual production of fish appeared to be some-whese between one and two billion tons.
But the need had to exist to justify the fishing effort. The North American fishery potential would depend upon what the consumer wanted. Harvesting the maximum sustainable yield might not be good economics.
"What must be maximised is the economic yield — the greatest value of production from the least effort in the prevailing context of demand," he said.
MARKET EXPANDING
Eric Turnill, general manager of BC Packers' fresh and frozen division, foresaw a greatly increased demand for Canadian fish and fish products as a result of population growth in the US.
With the US population increasing at the rate of 2.5 percent annually, he said, four million people were being added to the consuming population each year.
"In terms of fish and seafood, this represents about 40 million pounds of new sales every year," he estimated.
The optimism expressed by Canadian speakers at the North American Fisheries Conference was not shared by British fisheries scientists in a new publication, Future Prospects in the Distant Water Fisheries, prepared by Lowestoft Fisheries Laboratory and issued by the British ministry of agriculture.
FALLING CATCH RATE
The publication, forecasting world trends in fishing effort, concluded that:
• Fishing pressure on all grounds will increase with increasing world demand and catch rates will decline.
• Too great an intensity of effort — over fishing — is responsible for decline in stocks.
• International controls and conservation measures are required.
Concluding that conventional trawlers were becoming outmoded, the publication predicted that the main fishing effort in the future would be carried out by freezer, factory and mother ships.
"The catch per unit of effort has fallen to a level which is serious from the economic point of view of maintaining a viable fleet, but in most stocks, the total international catch is as high as ever," the publication stated.
"This is perhaps the most conclusive evidence that natural factors cannot be responsible for the declining abundance.
"The fish are still there — but so many vessels are fishing that each can only take a small part of the total and a declining catch per unit effort is the inevitable consequence."
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THE FISHERMAN - August 13, 1965