Foreign Cooperation in Fisheries

The Japanese and Russians not only catch fish offshore from Alaska, they are a major source of data the United States uses to manage the fisheries resource. Testifying recently before the Alaska Council on Science and Technology, Murray Hayes of NOAA's Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center said that the Russians are particularly cooperative in providing information. He said that they were eager to help because they realize that their cooperation is required if the United States is to continue to let them fish in our coastal waters.

Russian and Japanese fishing vessels provide voluntary information on fish catches and also cooperate by carrying Americans onboard to observe the catches directly. The result of the foreign and domestic data collections is that there is rather good information on which to base management of the fisheries.

Dr. Hayes reported that the Bering Sea king crab fishery probably has the best data base for management of any fishery in the world. The information is sufficient to predict with confidence how many crab will be available each year, despite the long natural cycle of the crab population. Having peaked in 1964, the king crab population is expected to peak again in 1981 and thereafter to decline.