Fishery Geography of the North Pacific Ocean

Yj QOU seem to think that salmon have the United States flag painted on each side of their backs. Such was the taunting response of a Japanese visitor to this country in the I930'S, the period of Japan's militaristic arrogance, to a protest against the invasion of Alaska's coastal salmon fisheries by Japanese fishing boats. These fisheries had been the subject of intensive scientific research. American fishermen were being compelled to conform to drastic governmental conservation regulation, but Japanese fishing completely disregarded any thought of conservation. In November, I951, the Japanese government invited United States and Canadian delegations to meet with a Japanese delegation in Tokyo to formulate a North Pacific fisheries treaty. The meeting was preceded by a friendly exchange of letters earlier in the year between Mr. John Foster Dulles and Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida. In contrast with the incident first related, the visitors were shown every courtesy, and the basic principle of the treaty draft that resulted from the negotiations was sound conservation. Conservation of ocean fisheries is not merely a case of applied biology. Where fish are to be found may be due to elements of physical geography; who is to catch them may involve questions of rights and boundaries established by man. Problems of ocean fishery management, therefore, almost inevitably require some kind of geographical consideration. And perhaps it is not impertinent to note that the solution of some of these problems is of acute importance, not only in the matter of augmenting food production to meet the hunger cries of increasing populations, but also in the elimination of international irritations

Biology · Fishery · Fishing · Geography · Pacific ocean · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Geology · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Marine and fisheries research · Oceanography