Fishing Industry (Commercial)

FISHING INDUSTRY (COMMERCIAL)

Although the U.S. commercial fishing industry had seen many changes since its earliest days, it has remained an important part of the economy for many communities, states, and countries. Throughout the twentieth century, an ever-increasing population fueled many changes in the industry, including technological advances in fishermen's ability to catch, successfully transport, and sell products. It also caused a constant increase of the number of fishing fleets around the world. These changes were a mixed blessing for the industry. A widespread demand in the use of ocean products (ranging from the use of fish protein as an additive in livestock feed to fish burgers at the local drive-through window) made the industry extremely profitable. On the other hand, this increase in demand also meant an increase in the number of fleets, industry investors, and fisherman, which eventually ended in the world's oceans becoming over-fished.

The first fishing vessels were powered by sail, and they were developed to fill the needs of the particular fishing region. This meant that the design of boats from different regions varied according to a particular environment or fishery. In the nineteenth century larger steam-driven winches replaced sailboats, allowing for heavier fishing gear and larger crews. By the end of the nineteenth century the internal combustion engine supplanted steam, and in the early twentieth century the inboard diesel engine had become accepted worldwide as the propulsion of choice.

These improvements in the overall size, speed, and range of fishing vessels led to advances in the methods used by fisherman to increase fish hauls. Larger catches, translating into larger profits, could now be obtained by increasing the number of hooks per line from one to over one thousand. Single traps were networked into a system of hundreds of connected traps. Nets became much larger, and their development even initiated a sub-industry in support of commercial fishing. Net-making is an industry that evolved from the making of nets from linen and hemp to the making of nets from cotton and hard fibers woven by rapidly moving machines. Small family fishing boats and cast netters were finding it tough to compete with the volume and subsequent lower price produced by the larger commercial fishing fleets.

Several developments during the 1940s and 1950s had a very significant impact on the profitability and stability of the commercial fishing industry. Mechanization made significant advances in netting methods when the power block was invented, which made it easier for fishermen to haul and store gear while purse seining (a method of fishing using a net that is weighted at the bottom and has floats along the top). Also important was the introduction of devices such as the power-driven drum designed to carry and store seine nets, gill nets, purse seines, and even the large trawl nets. Perhaps the most important development of the decade came with the invention of stern trawlers that processed their catch on board. Developed by the British, this idea was eagerly copied by many countries, including the Soviet Union, Japan, Poland, and Spain. The importance of this technology went beyond the vast quantities of ocean products that could now be processed at sea and sold more quickly back on land. The new technology brought about the collapse of some resources harvested by these highly efficient seiners and with it the realization that these resources were not limitless and needed to be protected.

In 1972 Iceland became the first country to claim an extended fisheries limit of 50 miles. In 1975 it extended this limit to 200 miles. Several countries followed Iceland's lead and soon the Law of the Sea was passed. This allowed for an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles off the coast of each country.

Many coastal communities in the United States are today supported by the commercial fishing industry, which became the largest private employer in states such as Alaska. According to government statistics printed in U.S. Industry Profiles in 1995, 364,000 people were employed in fishing industries in 1988. Of that number, 274,000 were fishermen and 90,000 were shore workers.

Although the industry is quite large in certain areas, pay levels are low. Compensation of fishermen is usually based on the percentage of the catch brought in by their captain's boat. Based on the earnings information of 1988, published in U.S. Industry Profiles, an inshore fisherman working within three miles of shore received an average salary of between $15,000 and $20,000, while an off-shore fisherman working outside the three mile limit earned an average of $30,000.

Not all of the profits generated from the commercial fishing industry come from the sale of ocean products. Freshwater fishing, carried out in lakes, rivers, or streams, does contribute a small percentage of the fish consumed globally. Fresh water fisheries tend to be more specialized depending on the species of fish they are producing. Fish such as the salmon and sturgeon that live in the sea but spawn in fresh water, and the eel that lives in fresh water but spawns in the sea, have forced these fisheries to become as specialized as they are. Other contributions to the specialty of fresh water fishing are the variations in the physical and chemical properties of fresh water in different areas and the overall size of the body of water itself.

Fish farming in aquatic hatcheries is another form of revenue supporting the fishing industry. Fish farming is the practice of raising generations of fish in controlled environments free from predators and maintained in optimal conditions. These fish farms supply plants and animals for a variety of purposes, including the production of animals for live bait, stocking purposes for sport fisheries, as well as the needs of the pharmaceutical industry. Many of the products of fish farms are the high-priced species that are sold as fresh products. Among these are shrimp, salmon, and oysters. The depletion of natural sources has helped provide more demand to support these hatcheries and it has allowed them to expand their production to other species, some of which are fresh water varieties, like catfish and trout.

Although fish farms offered the fishing industry several alternative methods of production, industry experts maintained concern with the depletion of resources in the world's oceans. Traditional techniques for managing fishery resources remain under close scrutiny, and calls for greater regulation of the industry have grown in number. According to Amos Eno, spokesperson for the National Fish and Wildlife Association, marine fisheries were the single most threatened resource in the United States in the late 1990s.

FURTHER READING

Bay-Hansen, C. D. Fisheries of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Traditional Commercial Fisheries. New York: Vantage Press, 1992.

Cheney, Daniel P., Thomas Mumford, and Thomas Mumford, Jr. Shellfish and Seaweed Harvests of Puget Sound. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1987.

Maril, Robert Lee. The Bay Shrimpers of Texas: Rural Fishermen in a Global Economy. Kansas City, MO: University of Kansas Press, 1995.

Oakley, Barbara A. Hair of the Dog: Tales from Aboard a Russian Trawler. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1996.

Sainsbury, John C. Commercial Fishing Methods: An Introduction to Vessels and Gears. Boston: Blackwell Science Inc., 1996.