COMMERCIAL FISHING Commercial fishing is a worldwide enterprise that involves the capture o f marine and freshwater fish and

shellfish and their preparation for market. Fis hing equipment ranges from small boats whose nets are cast and hauled in by hand to factory ships equipped with the most advanced technologies for finding, harv esting, and preparing huge amounts of fish. These large catches are very costl y, however, not only in the price of their equipment and fuel, but also in the depletion of fishery resources their use brings about. The major portion of the total fish harvest consists of few fish specie s, which are divided into two primary groups. Pelagic species - those which live in the near-surface layers of the oceans, this include several species of her ring, tuna, salmon, anchovies, pilchard, sardines, menhaden, and mackerel. Demer sal species - fish that live in the near-bottom layers of the ocean, this includ es cod, sole, halibut, haddock, hake, and flounder. Large catches are also made of a group of fish classed commercially as SHELLFISH - shrimp, lobster, scallop s, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, and squid. WHALING was once a major part of t he fishing industry. Overfishing has endangered many whale numbers, however, and the field has lessened in importance. Almost all large pelagic and demersal fish catches are made over or near the continental shelf, the underwater plateau around the continents and large i slands. In these waters temperatures, water depths, and the currents that influe nce the amounts of available food create an environment that is highly favourabl e to the existence of large schools of fish. The animals living in and on the bottom of the continental shelf serve a s additional food sources for demersal fish. Also, most species spawn on contine ntal shelves, and the main nursery grounds of many species are also in coastal r egions. The main fishing grounds are located on the wider continental shelves of the mid and high latitudes. The single most important area is the North Pacific , where as much as one-quarter of the world's fish catch is taken. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FISHING INDUSTRY Prehistoric people were hunters and food collectors, and they found much of thei r food in lakes, rivers, and shallow coastal ocean waters. Shellfish were the mo st accessible food , and the large shell heaps found around the first fishing te chnique, the use of bare hands. During 10,000-6000 BC, certain cultures that depended almost entirely o n a diet of fish developed primitive fishing technologies. The Scandinavian Magl emosian culture used stone-pointed fishing spears, antler and bone harpoons and fishhooks, and lines and nets woven of bark fiber. Improved equipment increased the size of catches, and preservation techniques were developed for drying, smok ing, salting, and pickling fish. As larger boats were built, fishing craft adven tured farther into the oceans, and sea fishing developed into a well-defined bus iness, with settlements whose main occupation was catching fish. Early ocean fisheries were confined to the coastal regions of settled ar eas and to the Mediterranean Sea, which had been the traditional fishing grounds for large numbers of fish species, especially tuna. Slowly, the rich fishing re gions of the Atlantic Ocean and the North and Baltic seas began to be exploited. The opening of these new fishing grounds had a significant influence on the spr ead of trade during the Middle Ages and on the establishment of new trade routes - for example, the herring fisheries in the southern Baltic and North seas that helped to establish the HANSEATIC LEAGUE.

The opening of the fishing areas around Nova Scotia and Newfoundland had a serious effect on European history. First fished by the French in the early 1 500s, by the beginning of the 17th century the North Atlantic fisheries had beco me the main source of New World wealth for England. PRINCIPAL FISHERIES The most important world fisheries are located in waters less than 400 m in depth. Major fishing grounds are in the North Atlantic including the GRAND BANKS and the Georges Banks off the New England coast, the North Sea, the waters over the continental shelves of Iceland and Norway, and the Barents Sea; in the North Pacific, specifically the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the coastal areas around Japan; and off the coasts of China and Malaysia. Other important f ishing grounds are found off the coasts of the southeastern United States, Chile , Peru, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands, and off the coasts of Namibia and S outh Africa. More than one-half of the marine fish catch in the United States is take n in the Northeast Pacific and in Alaskan coastal waters. In 1993 the total of a ll the Atlantic fisheries given slightly more than 18 percent, with the Gulf of Mexico fishery adding another 16 percent. Pollock, shrimp, sockeye salmon, and s now crab are the most valuable catches - and these, with the exception of shrimp , are all Northeast Pacific fish. Haddock landings off the New England coast dec reased in the 1980s because of overfishing. The cod fishery in the Northeast Atl antic collapsed in the early 1990s for the same reason. The profitable king crab fishery in the Bering Sea broke down in the 198 0s, and much of the crab fleet was changed to trawlers, which yielded higher cat ches of Pacific cod and pollock in joint venture fisheries with foreign processo rs, who were mainly Japanese and Russian. The local fisheries of the African coast, and many of those found elsewh ere in the tropics, remain undeveloped. The main limiting factors are: first, th e narrowness of the continental shelf, which doesn't allow the numbers of demer sal fish, and the existence of a straight coastline that doesn't offer many pos sibilities for good harbors; second, the high temperatures, which affect the kee ping quality of the fish catch; and third, limited access to the interior, makin g marketing difficult. Fish landings from these areas are usually dried, smoked, or salted immediately. FISHING TECHNOLOGIES In most modern, commercial fishing fleets the most common fishing vessel is the trawler, equipped with a diesel engine and outfitted with a variety of e quipment for fish finding and capturing. Factory ships are huge, operated by cre ws of 500 to 650 and accompanied by their own fleets of smaller ships called cat cher boats. Some factory ships can remain at sea for months at a time and can pr ocess and store huge amounts of catch. Nations engaged in large-scale, distant-w ater fishing operate factory ships. Some of these nations have invested heavily in many of the factory ships owned by U.S. firms. Coastal fleets commonly use sm aller vessels that deliver their catch to processing plants on shore. Sophisticated electronic equipment, such as sonar, is used to detect the presence of fish schools and to verify water depths and the roughness on the oc ean bottom. Airplanes and helicopters scout scattered schools of pelagic fish. Fish Harvesting The standard methods of catching fish involve either nets, hooked lines, or traps. Pelagic fish are most often harvested using purse seine nets, which a

re set in a wide circle around the school of fish and then closed and drawn up. Straight drift or gill nets - whose mesh is just large enough to allow the heads of fish to pass through while trapping them at their gills - are used to catch salmon, tuna, cod, and other fish. Demersal fish may be caught in otter trawl ne ts pulled along the ocean bottom or netted with beam trawls that are used in mor e shallow waters, mainly for shrimp. In halibut fishing, hooked groundlines, called long gths of many miles, with baited hooks attached at intervals g long lines are used primarily in tuna and salmon fishing, lines, shorter lines towed behind a moving boat. Lights may h waters to attract fish, which are then sucked up into the . lines, may reach len of 6 to 9 m. Floatin and so are trolling be lowered into fres ship by vacuum pumps

Beginning in the early 1980s, Japanese, Taiwanese, and South Korean fish ing fleets began to use a new fishing technique to make large-scale squid catche s in the North Pacific. Huge, 15m deep drift nets made of unbreakable nylon, eac h stretching 90 m, were lowered off the boats each evening. Together, the nets f rom a single boat formed a great wall just under the surface of the ocean. The n ets drifted all night, catching any sea creatures that happened to swim into the ir meshes - not only the squid, but amounts of other fish and ocean mammals such as dolphins and seals. Drift-net assemblies began to be used to make catches of other commercial fish in addition to squid. The accidental catch, called "by-ca tch" in the trade, was thrown away. Large-scale drift-net fishing declined after a UN resolution that went into effect in 1993. Fish Processing Fishing vessels that make their catches close to port store fish in crus hed ice or in refrigerated sea water. Large fishing vessels on long trips are eq uipped to keep their catch edible by storing it in refrigerated facilities or by quick-freezing it. A fully equipped factory ship will also have machinery on bo ard for fish filleting and freezing or canning. Fish fillets are frozen at sea i nto large blocks weighing up to 45 kg, these are later reprocessed on shore into individual portions. Some ships may also have facilities for drying and grindin g fish into fish meal. MAJOR FISHING COUNTRIES By the early 1990s, China had emerged as the nation with the largest fis h catches, totalling 16.5 million US tons in 1992. The Chinese catch is largely from fish farming. Japan is second, with about 9.4 million US tons. Peru is ne xt, with a catch of 7.5 million US tons. Chile, Russia, and the United States fo llow, in that order. India, with a catch of 4.6 million US tons, is the seventhlargest fishing nation. The Pacific countries of Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea complete the list of the ten main fishing nations. Britain, once a major f ishing country, is now only a minor player, having caught only 895,000 US tons i n 1992. OVER-FISHED FISHERIES In 1948 the total world fish catch was about 19 million metric tons. The total catch rose to over 60 million metric tons by 1970, almost 77 million metr ic tons in 1972, and in 1989 - a record year - over 110.2 million US tons. The 1 992 total was 108 million US tons. Despite the huge size of total world catches, fisheries scientists believe that the sustainable limits to the landings of man y important commercial species of marine fish were reached long ago. Decreasing catches of valuable fish, such as cod and haddock, were payed for by capturing l ess desirable species that would have been thrown out in the past - pollock, pil chard, whiting.

In 1994 the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) anno unced that 13 of the world's 17 major ocean fisheries are overfished. Overfishin g, the harvesting of a species to a point where it can't reproduce itself in ser ious numbers, is in large part responsible for the decline of cod, haddock, hali but, herring, several species of tuna, and whale. Not enough of these fish remai n in the seas to maintain spawning stocks; the fishing industry has been consumi ng its capital. Technology is one reason for the huge increase in fish landings since th e 1960s. Catches were so rich that private industry and governments both poured money into higher quality fishing fleets. Since the 1980s, for example, the Euro pean Union quadrupled its support for fishing, subsidizing the building of new b oats and arranging for member countries to exploit fishing grounds in other memb ers' jurisdictions. Since 1975, the number of trawlers on the high seas has incr eased by 30 percent, and the major fishing nations now suffer from overcapacity: the European Union could land its present catches with only half its present fl eet. In addition to overfishing, other factors play a part in the diminishing stocks of commercial fish species. Some are beyond human control. Most are trac eable to human activity. For example, developing human populations along the wor ld's coasts have added to the pollution of inland rivers and streams; estuaries and lagoons that previously sheltered and fed juvenile fish have been filled in and developed. Almost three-quarters of the species in the US fisheries must liv e in estuaries at some stage in their growth. By-catch, the netting and killing of unwanted fish, is another factor in the shrinkage of fish stocks. The dolphin and porpoise kill in tuna fishing bec ame well known to canned-tunafish buyers in the 1980s, and the methods in which purse seine nets are used in the tuna fisheries were changed as a result. Howeve r, in the US shrimp fishery alone, an estimated 172,000 US tons of juvenile fish are thrown out each year, contributing to a noticeable decreases in the populat ions of snappers and groupers in the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated by-catch in A laskan fisheries amounts to over one-half million US tons a year. Worldwide, as much as 30 percent of the fish caught may be wasted as by-catch. FISHERIES MANAGEMENT As early as the 1890s it was acknowledged that fishery resources are lim ited and that they must be managed through international agreements. In 1902 the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) was formed by the major European fishing countries. The founding of ICES led to many conventions for th e regulation of fisheries by quotas and by mesh size of nets, in order to obtain "maximum sustainable yields" - the highest yields consistent with the maintenan ce of fish stocks. Until recent years, such conventions were effective in the No rtheast Atlantic, although they did not operate as well in other regions. The ex tension of national jurisdictions over fisheries resources to a 200-naut-mi (370 -km/230-mi) zone, beginning in the 1970s, further limited the effectiveness of m any international conventions. In the United States the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976 placed all marine resources from three to 200 naut mi offshore under US jurisdiction. Management is effected through eight regional fisheries counci ls whose members come mainly from the industry. Each council has the power to se t quotas for the commercial fish species living within its jurisdiction in order "to achieve optimum yield from each fishery on a continuing basis," and to prep are recovery plans when they have decided that overfishing is depleting stocks. In addition, the councils have granted permits to foreign countries to harvest s pecified quantities of certain fish species in return for a fee. Countries that

have fished under US license included Japan, South Korea, the former USSR, and P oland. In their desire to maintain the prosperity of the fleets within their reg ions, however, the councils have not been harsh in their recognition of depleted stocks, the quotas they set, or their preparations for stock recoveries. In 199 4, however, the New England Fisheries Management Council began a process that wi ll lead to closing commercial fishing in the Georges Bank for a number of years. Fishing in international waters has also proved difficult to control. Wh ile it is believed, for example, that most nations have obeyed the UN moratorium on drift-net fishing, monitoring compliance remains an unsolved problem. The US Navy's Sound Surveillance System, a 48,000-km network of undersea cable, is cap able of tracking drift-net operations, but budget considerations may eventually force the sound surveillance system shutdown.