Fisheries and their Products

Abstract

THE twentieth meeting of the Conseil Permanent International pour l'Exploration de la Mer took place in May 1927 at Stockholm. The report marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Council, which, mainly through the efforts of Sir John Murray, Prof. Cleve, Dr. Otto Petterson, and Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, owed its existence to the initiative of the late King Oscar II. of Sweden, who summoned in 1889 at Stockholm the first of the two conferences leading up to the foundation of the Council in 1902. The programme of international exploration had for its object the study of the hydrography and biology of the North Atlantic, North Sea, and Baltic, including statistical and industrial problems. With the recent inclusion of Italy, the Mediterranean is now added and fifteen countries are involved. During the twenty-five years in which the Council has been in existence much work has been done, but most of the problems are so large that they need many years to show any results. Even now, however, in the infancy of the researches, definite results and promises of important results are seen. Direct research on fishes (especially food fishes, but also others indirectly related), with particular reference to their life histories, migrations, fluctuations, food, and environment, come first, and side by side the hydrography and plankton work with bottom sampling. At the same time statistical investigations, comparisons of various nets and methods of fishing, as well as research into the over-fishing of certain areas, are in progress, whilst the work on the whale fisheries is planned to fit in with that of the Discovery Expedition.