| PRESERVATION OF THE FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS |
By CHARLES HUGH STEVENSON, LL.M., D.C.L.
DETROIT, MICH.
THE fishery resources on the high seas can not be regulated and conserved by municipal or national laws, and the governments of the world are in a just sense the trustees for the management of this great wealth, this common field, where all reap and none sow, where all harvest and none plant.
It is to the common interest of all nations to prevent indiscriminate depletion of these resources. Useless destruction is a crime against posterity. Doubtless a century hence no policy of our great president will add more largely to his fame than his efforts toward preserving the natural resources, and no branch of these calls for more prompt international consideration than the resources of the high seas.
Upon the subject of the preservation of these resources so that their yield may continue undiminished, so much is appropriate to be said that one is lost in the abundance of it. The animal and vegetable products of the seas differ almost as widely in their characteristics and needs as those on land, and equally diversified and complicated are the problems concerning the most favorable conditions of their production and development.
Fortunately, the problem of sewage pollution, doubtless the greatest destructive factor in the inland and the coastal fisheries, has little or no existence in a consideration of the resources of the areas under consideration.
From the standpoint of protective needs, the fishery products of the high seas may be roughly divided into four general classes, viz.: (1) the migratory species, such as herring, mackerel, bluefish, etc.; (2) the bottom or ground species, such as cod, haddock, flounder and flatfish, which are less migratory in their habits and remain in the same general locality; (3) those products which are fixed to the bottom and are to some extent susceptible of ownership, as sponges, pearl oysters, etc.; and (4) the aquatic mammals.
As regards the migratory fishes, there is an increasing belief that serious impairment of these species is beyond our present demands on them, and that the destruction effected by man is but child's play compared with nature's work in that direction. Many states from time to time have enacted restrictive legislation with a view to preserving them, but estimation of the beneficial effect of these regulations is generally discredited.
