Peruvian fishmeal in a warehouse in Port Hueneme, California. In 1970, the United States was the largest importer of fish products in the world.

Breading shrimp in a Southeast Atlantic plant. The processing industry has developed many new convenience products, like breaded shrimp and fish sticks .

Chart showing difference between saturated fat molecule below, and above is a polyunsaturated fat molecule. The two main features that distinguish fish oil from other animal fats are the unusually long fatty acid chains in fish oil and their high degree of unsaturation.

A BCF home economist is testing a new industry-developed batter for preparing fried fish.

A taste panel records its reactions to a new fishery product. These trained observers rate the elements that determine whether the product is of high quality and will appeal to consumers.

New appetizing fishery products have become available in recent years. At the BCF Gloucester Technological Laboratory, shrimp from Maine are prepared with sauce and attractively packaged.

Breaded, cooked fish sticks are being packaged before freezing. the consumer only has to warm the sticks in an oven. Frozen fishery products are now sold in a dazzling variety of forms, and are second to canned products in the U. S. edible fishery supply.

Laboratory research in fishery food science leads to better handling, processing , marketing, and home preparation of fishery products - as well as changes in products to meet changing consumer preferences.

An engineer at the Gloucester Technological Laboratory tests newly developed plastic container for shipping iced fresh fish long distances. Elaborate tests are required to determine the merits of an innovation before it is released to industry.

A technician is packaging fish fillets in a plastic container for demonstration shipping tests. Ice will be added before the container is sealed.

Fishery food scientists carry out research to find the best means of retaining color, as well as taste, during storage of frozen fish. Sample at right treated with corn syrup solids; sample in center (retaining color) treated with EMQ ( ethoxyquinoline), sample on left frozen and lost color.

Capturing a sperm whale, third quarter, 19th century. The early origin of the reduction industry that produces fish meal and oil lies in the extinct U.S. whaling industry that reached its peak during the 19th Century.

A little-known aspect of the U.S. fisheries is the reduction industry that produces fish meal and oil. Most of the fishmeal goes into feed for good and rapid growth of poultry - chicken broilers, chicken breeders and layers, and turkeys. Fishmeal is an excellent balanced source of amino acids (components of protein) and adds minerals and vitamins to the feed.

Scales shed from herring are collected to make pearl essence - a lustrous and decorative finish applied to many products like baby toys, dolls, clothing, jewelry, etc. Small herring, caught along the Maine coast, furnish the principal raw material for our pearl essence industry. The fish will be canned and sold as Maine sardines.

Unloading kelp, a seaweed, from harvesting vessel, Port Hueneme, Calif. This aquatic plant will be processed into meal and used as a component in feed for livestock and poultry. The meal adds minerals and vitamins (chiefly riboflavin) to the feed.

Studying mating habits of a pair of tanner crabs. To calculate the sustainable harvest that can be expected, biologists must have a thorough understanding of the life history of a species and how it reacts to changes in the environment.

On board a BCF research vessel, fishery biologists are measuring fish and taking blood samples for stock analysis. Each species of fish or shellfish is composed of stocks or subpopulations, which may differ slightly in structure, physiology, or rate of growth. Information on stocks enables biologists to determine the sustainable yield of each stock.

The croaker is the dominant fish caught with trawls in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Large croakers find a ready market as food fish. In the 1950's a new fishery was started to supply small-sized bottomfishes - mainly croaker, spot, sand trout, and silver trout - to canneries packing pet food.

Famed cannery row has gone out of business as a center of sardine canning. In the 1930's and 1940's, the California sardine industry was the largest in the United States, landing a peak of 1.5 billion pounds in 1936. The sardine population had dwindled to almost nothing by the late 1960's but had been replaced by an even larger anchovy population.

Cleaning albacore loins in preparation for canning this premium whitemeat tuna. The discarded dark parts of the loin go into canned pet food. Tunas and tuna-like fishes -- with average catch of about 285 million pounds during 1963- 1967 -- dominated the California fisheries at that time and accounted for nearly 60 percent of total fishery landings.

Salmon trollers at Bodega Bay. River fishing for salmon in Calfornia was discontinued in 1957, and the catch now comes solely from the ocean. The high price to the fishermen put salmon among the most valuable landings in California.

Picking Pacific oysters by hand at low tide. The oysters are put into slatted tubs that have float lines attached. See image fish7990.

The gear aboard this Hawaiian longliner is used to take bigeye and yellowfin tunas and marlins and other billfishes from subsurface waters. Baited hooks are suspended at intervals along the buoyed longline, which may be ten miles in length. Flags indicate the position of the longline in the water.

Hawaii's fisheries produce a colorful array of fish for the local fresh fish market.

The fishpot is the most common gear in the Puerto Rico artisanal fisheries. Lined up on the beach are typical small boats, which take most of the commercial catch. Few truly large modern craft are operated by Puerto Ricans.

A Samoan woman cracks a piece of coral to extract a hidden sea urchin. Women and youngsters comb the reefs around American Samoa for many kinds of shellfish for use as food and to make shell leis and trinkets that will be sold to tourists. Few Samoans engage in commercial fishing enterprises.

Taiwanese fishermen unload albacore from a tuna longliner at an American cannery in Pago Pago. Fishery products, mainly canned tuna to be shipped to the United States, were valued at over $27 million in fiscal year 1967.

At the annual fish day at Port Washington, youngsters participate in a smoked- fish eating contest.

Bringing bag of alewives aboard a commercial trawler . In foreground is powered drum used to haul in wings and main body of trawl net.

Pumping alewives from the hold of a Lake Michigan trawler. This low-value fish will be reduced to meal and oil. Alewives migrated in from the Atlantic Ocean and have become the leading species in quantity taken from Great Lakes waters. Catches of high-value fish have declined seriously.

Commercial vessels, under contract to the BCF, skimming dead alewives from the surface of Lake Michigan. For years, dieoffs of overabundant alewives have created health and aesthetic problems.

Harvesting channel catfish that have been raised in an artificial pond.

Technician at the BCF Ann Arbor Biological Laboratory determines concentration of pesticides in samples of river and lake water. More study is needed to identify toxic substances that may be dangerous or lethal to aquatic life and humans when contaminated food is eaten.

Besides being a prime food fish, channel catfish raised artificially in fishponds appeal to the sportsman.

Scuba diver 100 feet below surface studies abundance and behavior of the northern lobster, taken mainly in wooden pots along the New England coast.

Bottom view of a hydraulic jet dredge developed to harvest surf clams and ocean quahogs previously unutilized. The dredge is towed on the seafloor at depths of 30 to 100 feet, and clams are washed out of sand and gravel by high-pressure jets of water. A v-shaped knife scoops up the clams; other jets are positioned to push the clams into the "cage" of the dredge for bringing to surface.

Northern shrimp taken during exploratory fishing in the Gulf of Maine. Good catches have been made north of Cape Cod and a commercial fishery has been developed. About 13 million pounds were caught during the winter of 1967-1968.

Aerial spotting and photography are used to evaluate the magnitude and movements of pelagic untapped fishery resources.

Mullet taken in experimental gill net. Four species of mullet are abundant in coastal and estuarine waters throughout tropic, semitropic, and temperate zones. These food fish - now caught in limited amounts - are a largely untapped resource in the West-Central Atlantic.

Behavior studies are conducted from underwater observation chamber on BCF ship CHARLES H. GILBERT. Skipjack are characterized by horizontal stripes on the belly. When in a feeding frenzy, vertical bars appear and can be seen on those fish near the surface where the bait has been cast.

A research vessel is experimenting with an instrumented buoy system for transmitting data to fishermen on the location, kinds, and abundance of fish schools. Attached to the buoy are chemical receptors that detect chemical residues given off by the fish and detectors that register electromagnetic changes on sensing equipment.

BCF scientists studying mating behavior of squid. After mating, females deposit egg capsule strands on the calcareous sand bottom. The lights have attracted the squid to the locality. In the background is Deep Diver, a research submersible of Ocean Systems, Inc., from which the divers have emerged.

Density and color enhancement of photograph of fish school and contrail by Philco Ford for BCF. To enhance readability of original photograph, which conceals many details, each subtle tone is assigned a color. This and other advanced techniques makes it possible to identify fish schools, changes in plant life in water, water depths, and polluted areas. See images fish7971 and 7972.

Assembling computer at BCF Beaufort Biological Laboratory. As fast as information can be collected, computers can store, analyze, print, contour, and map for the fishery scientist.

Mass culture of algae under artificial light provides food for larval and juvenile shellfish in BCF aquaculture programs. Each 5-gallon glass container produces a continuous supply of suspended algae for about 4 months before becoming so contaminated that the culture must be replaced.

Selective breeding to improve growth of the eastern oyster is conducted at the BCF Milford Laboratory. Oyster spat of differenct hybrids can be seen as small round discs that have adhered to the scallop shells. a technician will determine the growth rates of the various genetic crosses.

Laboratory scientist sorting larval shrimp that have been artificially cultivated at the BCF Galveston Laboratory.

Fertilized salmon eggs are being placed on immersion incubator to determine the best conditions for survival. Through such research, better methods have been developed to cultivate the fish artificially through the critical egg hatching and larval stages, and survival is improved.

Yellowfin tuna being thawed in water. Excessive water pickup and sogginess can be a problem. Increasing amounts of fish frozen at sea or frozen raw materials are being thawed for further processing. Advanced electronic and vacuum-stema thawing techniques are being investigated.

To bring fishery products of high quality to the consumer, tests are being considered using helicopters to transport fish quickly to processing plants.