have not had an association or organization which was consistently pleading their case here in Washington. It was especially gratifying to me, therefore, that the Congress recently took favorable action on an amendment which I proposed to the Small Business Act-signed into law by the President on February 4, 1964 (Public Law 88-264)-which has made these fishermen eligible for disaster loans. We are hopeful that these loans will keep these men going until more permanent solutions can be found.

Loans, however helpful, are obviously not the full answer. We have got to find a way to get the men back to work again. One way will be through intensified research and development as to (1) the nature of botulism E, (2) processes of treating the chub, (3) new markets, and (4) promotion. While these steps are being taken, we must find a way to move the existing stocks of frozen chub and get the fishermen out in the boats again.

Various legislative proposals have been drawn up to try to accomplish these objectives: among them H.R. 9408 (Blatnik) and H.R. 9469 (Staebler), which are companion bills to our S. 2411 in the Senate. These would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to make section 32 payments to reestablish the purchasing power of fishermen and small processors.

Some of us have felt that the end result we are seeking could be accomplishedand perhaps preferably-under S. 627. With some clarifying language, which I have discussed with representatives of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, it seems apparent that section 4(b) could provide the Great Lakes fishermen and processors with the kind of immediate, concrete assistance they must have if they are to survive as part of the industry. I believe the Bureau is ready with the suggested amendments, and I urge you to give them your most sympathetic consideration. Among other things, the new language would authorize the Secretary of the Interior, if he deemed it appropriate, to use the sums made available under section 4(b) to move the stored fish out of storage (paying the previous market price to those who are holding it) and temporarily to assure the fishermen markets at previous price levels.

The members of this committee are accustomed, I am sure, to frequent pleas for help, couched in terms of "emergency." I can assure you of my own knowledge that the Great Lakes fishery situation is indeed a desperate one, and that only prompt action of concrete assistance-such as that proposed in the amendmentswill keep the industry from destruction.

I appreciate your patience in hearing me out, and I stand ready to assist you in any way you may request.

[From the Congressional Record, Apr. 24, 1963]

GREAT LAKES FISHERIES: PROBLEMS AND PROGRAMS TO SOLVE THEM Mr. HART. Mr. President, the fisheries of the Great Lakes are presently in acute distress. In many areas commercial fishing has all but disappeared and sport fishing becomes progressively less attractive. Unless more effective programs are instituted, and soon, this once valuable resource threatens to deteriorate rapidly into insignificance.

In my description of the plight of these fisheries and in my proposals for programs I shall not undertake the broad coverage given these matters by our former colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Benjamin A. Smith, in his talk of able discussion in this Chamber on May 24, 1962. It seems to me that Senator Smith's observations on U.S. fisheries as a whole apply very well to Great Lakes fisheries in particular. I agree also with his view that we have given our fisheries far too little consideration as a basic renewable resource of major national importance.

The Great Lakes are a geographical phenomenon unparalleled on this planet. The five huge bodies of fresh water lie in a connected chain that extends from Duluth, Minn., to Watertown in north-central New York. Together they have an area of 95,000 square miles of which 61,000—just under two-thirds—lie within U.S. boundaries.

Before the first European arrived, the lakes were important arteries of commerce and traffic for the Indians. Later, they provided avenues of travel by which the earliest explorers penetrated to the heart of the continent. Then came the missionaries, the fur traders, and finally the growing flood of immigrants seeking new and permanent homes in an area rich in land and other natural resources. To all of them the lakes were a highway.

This stream of traffic has never ceased to grow. The annual tonnage of cargo transported over the lakes is now in the order of 300 million tons-a varied cargo of iron ore, coal, limestone, grain, oil, and manufactured products. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway which makes ocean ports of lake ports is bringing a surge of foreign traffic to add to the domestic growth.

The lakes not only were a "water highway" for early settlers but later a major factor in determining the distribution of the dense population of the modern midwest and of the industries so vital to the region's economy. As population and industry grew, the availability of adequate water supplies for domestic and industrial use assumed importance parallel to that of cheap transportation.

More recently the recreational uses of the lakes have been assuming greater and greater importance. Nine percent of all citizens of the United States live in counties bordering on the Great Lakes and many millions more live within a distance that can be covered by a few hours' drive. As urban congestion increases, the need for outdoor recreation becomes more urgent. The Great Lakes with their 9,600 miles of shoreline-more than half of it in the United Statesoffer unequaled opportunities for boating, swimming, fishing, camping, hiking, and general relaxation.

What role have the fisheries played in the growth and development of the Great Lakes region and what is their role today?

Great Lakes fish were a prime source of food for local inhabitants centuries before the first European made his appearance. The distribution of the Indian population and explorations by anthropologists at sites known to date back to the 11th and 12th centuries demonstrate clearly the strong dependence of Indians on fish for food.

Fish was a mainstay in the diet of the explorers and missionaries. Accounts of early explorations in personal journals and published reports carry repeated and enthusiastic observations on the abundance and delectable flavor of Great Lakes fishes.

The early settlers and fur traders ate fish extensively, and both soon became aware of the possibilities for fishing as a commercial enterprise. By the middle of the 19th century fur companies had added salt fish as a marketable product. When the growth of settlements warranted, some men turned to commercial fishing as a full-time profession. Much of their product was salted or smoked— the only means they had for holding fish for local consumption or shipment to other markets.

From these small beginnings developed a productive and prosperous Great Lakes commercial fishing industry. Many small communities, especially in more northerly localities, were primarily fishing villages. Considerable areas depended on commercial fishing as their principal source of income. Even in larger towns, income from fishing contributed materially to the local economy. The output of the commercial fisheries of the Great Lakes reached its highest levels in the last decade of the past century, and the first two of the present when the annual landings by U.S. fishermen frequently exceeded 100 million pounds. Since then the catches have been smaller. Production has not been greater than 100 million pounds since 1918, and in most years it has fluctuated between 70 and 85 million pounds.

Notwithstanding the lower production level of the Great Lakes fisheries over the last 40-odd years, these fisheries continued to be an economically significant element in the Nation's fishing industry into the 1940's. Two circumstances have prevented wide or full appreciation of the true economic worth of the Great Lakes commercial fisheries.

First, the Great Lakes do not have major fishing ports comparable, for exampe, with Gloucester, Mass., on the east coast or San Pedro, Calif., on the west. One does not see vast tonnages of Great Lakes fish at any single place at any one time. Rather, the landings are scattered widely. The fish are brought ashore at many ports-scores, indeed hundreds-scattered along the thousands of miles of shore

line.

Second, the value of Great Lakes fish has lain traditionally in their quality, not in the bulk. The Great Lakes have been the principal or only domestic source of such highly prized species as whitefish, lake trout, walleye, blue pike, yellow perch, and ciscoes. Some of these fish you will recognize as gourmet items, featured in the best public dining rooms. Fish of this quality bring high prices to the producer.

Let me give just three examples of the significance of the landed value of Great Lakes fish as recently as 20 years ago, based on the statistics for 1943 and 1944. First. Commercial fishery landings on the Great Lakes in those 2 years amounted to only 72 percent of the take of the Pacific pilchard or sardine fishery,

then near its peak of productivity, but the value of Great Lakes landings almost exactly equaled that of the pilchard.

Second. Great Lakes landings of all species taken commercially were only 17 percent of the landings of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, but the value was equal to 60 percent.

Third. Moving now to the Atlantic, Great Lakes commercial production equaled only 22 percent of the combined landings at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Maine, but was valued at 54 percent of those landings. Statistics on the commercial landings fail by a good margin to reflect the total worth of the Great Lakes fisheries.

Angling for recreation around the shores and islands of the Great Lakes is a sport of long standing. By the thirties it had grown into an economically important venture. The many small ports allowed easy access for sportsmen's boats and motors, and the quality fish of the lakes were most attractive. Trolling for lake trout in Superior, catching bass in Michigan's coastal bays, taking rainbow trout in the St. Mary's River between Lakes Superior and Huron and yellow or blue pike around the islands of western Lake Erie became the avocation of thousands of anglers.

Sport fishing provides extensive recreation both for the millions who live adjacent to the lakes and for the many thousands of tourists who are attracted to the region. While it is difficult to obtain dependable figures on the extent and value of sport fishing, the evidence is clear that participation is enormous and that the actual take of sport fishermen often constitutes a considerable percentage of the total catch, and that for some species in certain waters it may exceed commercial landings.

Certain information is available on sport fishing, and it is most suggestive. A 1958 survey by Ohio, for example, revealed that in 160 days anglers took almost 51⁄2 million fish weighing well over 1 million pounds within a 180-square mile area of western Lake Erie. Wisconsin has estimated an annual 2 million angler days for a single county bordering on Lake Michigan. State officials of both Wisconsin and Michigan believe that sportsmen regularly take at least as many smelt as do commercial operators. From these and other bits of information it is clear that sport fishing in the Great Lakes is highly productive and has many devotees. Certainly, the returns to many communities from tourist expenditures for transportation, food, lodging, boat rental, bait, and the like loom important in the local economy.

A 1960 survey of the economic value of fishing in the North Central States, including the Great Lakes, indicated that about 2,700,000 anglers in that area fished in natural lakes and streams. Expenditures of these fishermen averaged $95 each on items necessary for their fishing trips.

The esthetic value of the recreation is not measurable but is immeasurably important. The health value of out-of-door recreation-the exercise and relief of tensions-in our pressure-packed society, can hardly be overestimated.

Beginning in the early 1940's the Great Lakes fish populations underwent a series of disastrous changes that have been a major factor in the present distressed state of the commercial fisheries and also have affected some sport fisheries.

I do not wish to imply that fish stocks had not changed before the 1940's. A progressive shift from the choicer high-priced fish had been in progress for decades, and in the mid-1920's the disappearance of the cisco, typically dominant in the landings, dealt a hard blow to Lake Erie fishermen. The expansion of the range of the introduced carp in the past century and of the introduced smelt in the 1930's caused loud outcry from fishermen, but actual damage was hard to prove and some productive fisheries have subsequently been based on the new species. The changes that came about before the 1940's, adverse as some may have been, were almost trifling in comparison with the debacle that followed the penetration and spread of the sea lamprey through the three upper lakes-Huron, Michigan, and Superior.

The story of the sea lamprey in the Great Lakes has attracted nationwide attention. In the Senate we have reviewed annually the budgets for research and the development of methods for control, so I shall not go into great detail on the sea lamprey problem. I do want to reemphasize the seriousness of the damage it has caused the fishing industry.

The major injury to the fisheries was the total destruction of lake trout in Lakes Huron and Michigan and the reduction of the Lake Superior stocks to a small fraction of their former abundance. The resulting loss of production, worth nearly $8 million annually, was a grievous blow. In Lake Superior, for example, the lake trout normally has accounted for a full 70 percent of the an

nual cash income of the producers and has provided additional income from thousands of anglers who charter boats and equipment to troll for trout in deep waters.

The catastrophic loss of the lake trout fishery was so spectacular that other damages to the fisheries were given less attention than they deserved. In Lakes Huron and Michigan lamprey depredations are keeping whitefish so scarce that they cannot be commercially taken at a profit in many areas. The recent level of production for the two lakes combined has been mostly under 1 million pounds per year; under normal conditions the lakes should yield 6 million pounds. Thus we have an annual loss of 5 million pounds for a quality fish which brings a price per pound equal to or greater than that of lake trout.

Less spectacular, but still significant, are the estimated losses of more than 1 million pounds per year in the commercial take of walleye in Saginaw Bay, and of 2 million pounds per year of suckers in Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Lamprey depredations have reduced the fishery for chubs or deepwater ciscoes to a chaotic low in parts of Lake Huron and all of Lake Michigan. The larger species and individuals have become so scarce that production, using the traditional gill nets, is frequently marginal or at a loss. Small chubs are plentiful, but they can be produced effectively only in those waters where the States permit experimental trawling. Even this fishery is experiencing economic difficulties. Losses from the sea lamprey are underestimated severely, if we concentrate on the $8 million worth of lake trout. The true annual loss of revenue to the commercial fisheries surely is much greater. A figure of between $12 and $15 million would be entirely reasonable possibly, even, too low.

The commercial fishermen of Lakes Huron and Michigan are suffering additional miseries from the recent population explosion of alewives, a species that penetrated the upper lakes from Lake Ontario. No use of alewives for human food has been developed in the Great Lakes area and only under exceptional conditions can they be taken at the thinnest margin of profit for animal food. When alewives are plentiful on gill-net grounds, fishermen have to suspend operations since their value does not equal the labor and maintenance costs of clearing and repairing the nets. When such conditions prevail, even decent catches of other species become unprofitable. The story does not end here. Evidence grows more convincing that the lake herring declines when the alewives appear. Thus another valuable native fish dwindles.

The sea lamprey has never created a significant problem in Lake Erie where environmental conditions have limited its natural reproduction. Lake Erie nevertheless has experienced sweeping changes, mostly in the 1950's, that have brought the fisheries to the brink of ruin. Two of the three principal money fish, whitefish and blue pike, each yielded less than 50,000 pounds in 1960, United States and Canadian catches combined. Catches of whitefish were consistently heavy in earlier years, reached an alltime record of 7 million pounds in 1949, and accounted for landings of 24 million pounds as recently as 1953. The take of blue pike was nearly 20 million pounds as recently as 1955. The catch of the third money fish, the walleye, dropped from 15%1⁄2 million pounds in 1956 to 1 million pounds in 1960 and has declined further since.

The evidence is strong that Lake Erie's difficulties have arisen primarily from environmental changes. A major factor in these changes may well be the progressive and growing enrichment from sewage effluent from the populous metropolitan area of the Detroit River and the western and southern shores of the lake. The overall effects of fish population changes in Lake Erie that I have reviewed are not seen in the production records. The U.S. commercial catch still hovers about the 70-million-pound level. But, the fish currently produced are the less desirable lower priced species and landed at progressively smaller profit margins. Many operators have been unable to survive the high-yield, low-price slim-margin regimen and have stopped fishing altogether. In fact, many once-thriving fishing ports are now entirely closed down and formerly major ports may now have just a few fishing craft. Fish as fish are far from scarce in the lakes. The total quantities available well may be at a record high. Yet it is increasingly difficult to take and sell them at a reasonable profit.

To the problems arising from the fish population changes with their lower income-producing characteristics must be added the difficulties which are common to the commercial fishing industry as a whole and which have been laid before you in talks by various Members of the Senate. I need review them only briefly. The technological backwardness, the lack of capital, and the encumbrance by tradition which plague most segments of the Nation's fisheries are probably more severe in the Great Lakes than in any other important fishery. The scattered

distribution of the fisheries and the high price per pound received for many species furthered the establishment of small, independent operating firms. No truly large producing firms appeared. A high percentage of the producers had one-boat operations, owned by partners or, more commonly, entirely within a single family.

This kind of operation made sense when high-priced fish were plentiful. The fishermen made a decent living and were comfortingly independent. Personal incentive to develop better means of taking fish was low. In addition, experimentation was hampered and discouraged by the stringent regulations under which the fishermen operated.

The firms were too small to afford the sizable capital outlays necessary for extensive processing. They landed and sold their catches in the round. The firms lacked any substantial reserve capital and normally did not feel the need for it.

Fisheries with this background were poorly suited to survive the changed conditions of the last 10 to 20 years. It is in no way surprising that so many operators failed to survive, and more will disappear unless the industry receives effective assistance.

The Great Lakes fishing industry suffers also from that common ailment of most food-producing enterprises: the growing disparity between price received by the producer and price paid by the consumer. Labor and material costs have increased enormously. Yet, fishermen today actually are receiving less per pound for some choice species than they did before World War II. Improved efficiencies and economics in all phases of catching, handling, and selling are needed, but the industry cannot do the job alone-it needs outside help.

Still other important handicaps to economic stability have been the widely fluctuating supply and the variation of quality that originates in highly seasonal production and a general lack of adequate quality control. The major production of many species is landed within a very short period of time. During the glut period fishermen must often dispose of their catches at ruinous prices simply to keep them from going to waste. Later, when fish are scarce, prices rise sharply, If the glut production could be processed and stored, the supply to market could be stabilized and the fishermen could receive a substantially greater return. Facilities for storing and processing are inadequate today and most firms lack the capital to set them up.

The traditional practice of landing and shipping to market in the round leaves many opportunities for deterioration of the quality of Great Lakes fish before they reach the consumer. Improvement of quality control at every stage from net to retail market can increase acceptability of the product and stimulate consumer demand. Here, again, expert advice and assistance are needed.

Before I undertake comments as to the type and scope of Federal research and developmental programs, I should like to indicate briefly the role the Federal Government should play in seeking the solution of Great Lakes fishery problems. The Great Lakes are unique in that despite their considerable area they contain no international or interstate waters. The boundary between Canada and the United States is as clearly defined as are the boundaries between our States. Thus the entire extent of the lakes is part of some State or the Province of Ontario. Each political jurisdiction has full authority over the fisheries within its boundary. The argument could be advanced that since the States own the U.S. waters of the Great Lakes, research on, and development of, the fisheries should be strictly a State matter. This argument might gain validity if the fish remain discretely within the correct political boundaries, but they obviously do not. We may lack interstate or international waters but we do have interstate and international stocks of fish that move about as their biological needs require and are fished by citizens under various jurisdictions. The problems of the Great Lakes know no political boundaries and they are handled best by agencies that are free to operate without regard to State lines. Federal attention to fishing matters is as justifiable in the Great Lakes as it is in coastal and offshore fisheries. The Nation as well as individual States will benefit from sound fishery development.

The Federal Government acknowledged its responsibility early by including the Great Lakes in its first major survey of the Nation's fisheries in 1879-80. A second, more comprehensive survey of the Great Lakes fisheries was made in 1885, and lesser ones followed. The Federal Government further joined Canada in the establishment of commissions and boards to review fishery problems from an international standpoint. The first of them reported in 1897; and the most recent, the International Board of Inquiry for the Great Lakes Fisheries, reported in 1942.