resources. A more current inventory of our fishery resources has been needed for a long time. Its usefulness will be at least as great as Senate Document No. 51. It will concern resources subject to increased cultural changes from pollution and other alternations of the aquatic environments; it will cover fishery resources also being exploited by foreign fishermen, and those subject to social, economic, and political conflicts.

The Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956, as amended (16 U.S.C. 742a) directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct general and continuing investigation in fishery matters, and to prepare and disseminate information, including reports to Congress and the public. In large degree, we already have the necessary authority to carry out the activities contemplated under Senate Joint Resolution 29. However, the specific directions from Congress, as expressed by the resolution with our proposed amendment, can be helpful in efforts to protect the fishery resources, to improve the commercial fishing industry, to enhance recreational fishing, and to focus attention on many critical problems. We therefore recommend the enactment of this resolution.

Reasons for the proposed survey are rather clearly stated in the preamble of the resolution, which calls attention to the variety and abundance of fishery resources, yet recognizes that the U.S. position as a world fishing nation has declined substantially in the last 10 years. It calls attention to the increase in foreign fishing activities off our coasts, and to our interest in utilizing fully the living resources of our inland and oceanic waters. The preamble also emphasizes the need to maintain the yield of our fisheries and to increase the harvest to satisfy the national demand for fishery products and, we might add, for recreational fishing.

While the resolution, in the form in which it passed the Senate, is limited to commercial fisheries, we recommend in our departmental report that sport fisheries be included in the survey. This activity has had an enormous growth in recent decades, and its impact on the economy of coastal and other communities has been substantial. Inclusion of all fishery resources will make the report comparable to the earlier survey and resulting Senate Document No. 51.

Many of our fishery resources and the fisheries they support have undergone drastic changes since 1944 when Senate Document No. 51 was authorized. Major resource disasters have occurred to the Pacific sardine, the walleye and lake trout in the Great Lakes, the oysters in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and still more recently, the menhaden along our gulf and Atlantic coasts. On the other hand, important fishery resources have been found and major fisheries have been established or expanded. These include king crab, brown and pink shrimp, the Atlantic tuna fishery, and the industrial fishery comprising a variety of species from the Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, North Pacific, and more recently the alewife in the Great Lakes.

Sport fishing in our coastal waters was enjoyed by relatively few people in 1944. None could possibly have foreseen its impact on the general economy, or its broadened opportunities for wholesome recreation for millions of citizens. The recently developed competition for the big game fishes between anglers and foreign fishermen is both new and growing, and we know far too little about this segment of the

resource. Although for years statistics of the commercial fish cas and its value have been well covered, there still is no such documentation of the anglers' catches. Estimates based on sampling or partial surveys range from 500 million to over a billion pounds of salt water fish taken annually for sport. The country needs to know the whole story on both salt and fresh water fish statistics for conservation purposes.

In addition to our coastal waters, thousands of lakes and thousands of miles of streams actually or potentially support a tremendous amount of sport fishing. It is these waters where the great bulk of American anglers enjoy their sport. It is these waters that mostly support the sport fishing industry-the tackle manufacturers, the boat and trailer people, the outboard engine people, and the like. These industries support a payroll for many thousands of people in salaries, wages, and commissions. We need a general survey to give us and the Congress full information on the extent of these inland sport fishing waters their quality, possibilities for expansion, and potential dangers to the waters from a sport fishing standpoint.

When Senate Document No. 51 was published, we were the second commercial fishing nation in the world. Today, we rank fifth, and even this position is threatened as the condition of our fleets and resources continues to decline. In the midforties our fishermen had little competition for coastal fishery resources from foreign nations. Senate Document No. 51 devoted little space to foreign competition, because it was not a serious problem. Today, however, thanks to our failure to use the fishery resources of the Continental Shelf fully, hordes of foreign vessels compete for the ground fish resources in the Northwest Atlantic and Northeast Pacific. Even our traditional salmon fishing interests are being challenged.

Senate Document No. 51 considered pollution of our coastal waters, rivers, and lakes a serious problem in 1944 and recommended "Federal control of water pollution" and "*** coordination at the national level in planning, construction, and operation of all projects which involve the use of water, with full representation by the Fish and Wildlife Service." This was before the threat of thermal pollution, pesticides, wastes from manufacture of countless thousands of new chemicals, and before the growing rate of destruction of valuable coastal and estuarine areas from engineering activities. The increase in scope and complexity of pollution problems only serves to emphasize the ever-increasing demands, usually conflicting, for habitat required by fishery resources.

Senate Document No. 51 concluded that U.S. fishery resources are a very important part of the national wealth, as indeed they are today. The major problem in the management of these resources will be to provide an adequate supply in the face of continued increased demands and dwindling habitat.

While the U.S. fisheries continue to be plagued with problems, we can point to many solid accomplishments toward solutions. In 1944, it was noted in Senate Document No. 51 that Pacific halibut was the only fishery resource adequately supported and successfully managed. Research over the 20 years has provided us with knowledge to manage other fishery resources. We are achieving success with some Pacific

salmon stocks, and with many of our fresh-water sport fishes. There are other outstanding research and management accomplishments: Lake trout will again become an important sport and commercial fish in the Great Lakes, thanks to our ability to control the sea lamprey. Our fish cultural techniques are substantially advanced from 1944: We can better control fish diseases; also, we have a start on developing strains resistant to disease, or suited to special conditions; we can spawn some fish and shellfish when and as we need them. We have made substantial advances in fresh-water fish farming, and we are on the verge of farming the edges of the sea.

Since 1944, a substantial amount of important legislation has been enacted to support more fishery research and to help us do a better job in administering our fishery resources. The Fish and Wildlife

Service has been reorganized, as a result of the Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956, into one of the finest fishery research and management agencies in the world.

Federal aid legislation has been passed to encourage the States to conduct more fishery research and management. A national anadromous fishery program calling for cooperative Federal-State activities. was authorized by law just last year. Laws have been enacted to help commercial fishermen to compete successfully in producing protein food. State compacts have been authorized to better cope with river basin resource problems, and laws have been passed implementing important international arrangements or conventions.

The Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act as amended in 1946, 1958, and 1965 provides for the enhancement as well as protection of fishery resources at Federal and federally licensed water-resource projects. The coordination achieved at the national level and full representation of the Fish and Wildlife Service in planning such projects fulfill the recommendation in Senate Document No. 51.

In recent years, thanks to improved legislation endorsed by your committee and to policy changes, the Fish and Wildlife Service is having more to say about the design and operation of engineering projects which can damage important aquatic habitats. Scientists know more about environmental requirements of our fishery resources and, consequently, we can begin to make positive recommendations to improve aquatic habitat or to prevent more serious destruction of natural areas. Many of the broader resources bills passed by the conservation-minded 89th Congress will have tremendous beneficial impact on fishery resources.

Wise management of the fishery resources of our inland and coastal waters is a very large task in itself. The fish and Wildlife Service, in close cooperation with the States, has been devoting a great deal of attention to this problem for many years. We have by no means resolved all the problems of our domestic fisheries, and we are constantly faced with new problems created by the steady growth of our human population; by changes in environment, especially of inshore waters; by our rapidly increasing technology; and by other changes in our dynamic economy.

We are all aware that since World War II a great revolution has developed in world fisheries as certain nations have sought to increase their supply of animal protein from the sea. With one or two outstanding exceptions, we remain essentially a coastal fishing nation.

The Nation's demand for fishery products has been met by increasing our imports, and, as you know, we now import more fishery products that we produce domestically.

These developments have created difficult new problems for the American fishing industry, which we are attempting to solve by a variety of international and domestic activities. We have not been unsuccessful in these endeavors, but we must remain alert to direct our efforts in ways which offer greater promise of economic stability and growth of our own fisheries. It is in the Nation's interest to play an increasingly important part in international fishery affairs for the protection and conservation of both commercial and recreational fishing by the U.S. citizens.

The survey and report, which this resolution would direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct and prepare, would provide a useful description of the status of all of the fisheries at this critical stage in their history. It would provide the Congress, the Department, the States, the fishing industry, and the public with an inventory of resources now used or still lying unused in our inland and marine waters, their condition and potential yield. It would identify possible methods for managing these resources for full utilization, and in the best public interest; it would show how their value could be enhanced by appropriate legislation, additional research, or technological development.

Knowing that we do not have the facilities and skilled manpower necessary to tackle all these problems at once, we are obligated to establish priorities in program planning and budgeting. Plans and priorities must be under constant review and revision to be sure that we are making progress in the right direction. A report as visualized by Senate Joint Resolution 29 would be a useful document to us in this task, and a timely sequel to Senate Document No. 51.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Pautzke.

Mr. Pelly?

Mr. PELLY. Mr. Pautzke, I want to compliment you on a very fine statement. I think that I am correct, am I not, when I indicate that this is not simply legislation calling for an inventory of fishing resources, but goes far beyond that and would suggest methods of managing these resources, as you have indicated on page 9 of your statement, and the best way of getting the most out of those resources? And it would include additional recommendations maybe for legislation to better the fishery resources.

Mr. PAUTZKE. You are perfectly right, Mr. Pelly. In addition to cataloging and analyzing our own domestic fisheries, the input of this legislation directs us to be mindful and make an all-out effort with respect to foreign fisheries and their take and their impact on our domestic resources. I would say that that is one of the more important parts of this legislation, because of the widespread variety and the methods of obtaining this information. We have the processes, but we lack the manpower and the direction to obtain this broadspread foreign impact upon our fisheries.

Mr. PELLY. This inventory would include the coast of Africa, and other parts of the world, would it?

Mr. PAUTZKE. I believe, and I stand corrected, the general impact upon our own particular Continental Shelf.

Mr. CROWTHER. I think it goes beyond that. I think the bill itself refers to the high seas fisheries which are of interest to the United States. And, since we are doing research work off Africa, it would, I think, include those species which are off there.

Mr. DINGELL. If the gentleman will yield, on page 2, line 9, I note that it refers to the fact that the Secretary of the Interior is authorized "to conduct a survey of the character, extent, and condition of the coastal and fresh-water commercial fishery resources, including both those resources now being utilized by United States and foreign fishermen and those potential resources which are latent and unused, of the United States, its territories and possessions."

Then I think the language just referred to appears "including coastal and distant water fishery resources in which the United States has an interest or right."

As I read those, it goes beyond the Continental Shelf of the United States, and could go to the waters off Africa, if we had traditional fishing in that area.

Mr. CROWTHER. Yes. That is what I intended to say.

Mr. PELLY. It could go to the coast of South America, where we have an interest and seem to have a traditional problem of those nations taking over our fishing boats when they are 200 miles at sea. Mr. CROWTHER. I think it would involve those waters where we have an interest.

Mr. PELLY. The tunafish are all over the high seas, and I think we would have an interest. I think there are new areas we have found where the tuna are prevalent.

Mr. CROWTHER. That is right.

Mr. PELLY. I am surely glad that the Department supports this legislation and has included the sports fishing interests, because I think that is exceedingly important, as pointed out by Mr. Pautzke.

I would like to ask Mr. Pautzke about the similar research work that is being done by other nations. For example, it seems to me that it was only 2 or 3 years ago that the Russians began making an inventory of the U.S. coastal fishery resources and as a result of that have sent over, I would say, up to 200 large fishing trawlers that have been harvesting these resources in great quantity; is that not so?

Mr. PAUTZKE. That is true. Not only the Soviet Union, but the research vessels preceded the Japanese, as you know.

Mr. PELLY. There are three research vessels of the Japanese now inventorying the Washington coast, and we understand that they are building some 300 additional fishing vessels to come over and harvest those fishing resources that they are studying right now; is that not true?

Mr. PAUTZKE. That is true. That is probably what prompted my reply that this study was primarily on the high seas and the areas off our own coasts, because we are being bombarded so heavily at the present time by foreign fisheries.

Mr. PELLY. I know that as a result of the research work done by the Soviet Union only yesterday reports came in that 81 trawlers of the Russians were off the mouth of the Columbia River 7 miles, using gill nets and their decks were covered with salmon, in spite of the fact that there was an understanding that they wouldn't come within the 12-mile limit and would not take salmon.