• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.30-46
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• 1992

Korea's first exploratory tuna fishing was done with a used longliner in 1957. Then the commercial fishing has been made steady headway since the 1960's and grown up to one of major tuna fishing countries in 1970's. The tuna fishing aimed primarily at acquiring foreign currency, then tuna was exported directly from the overseas fishing base. Tuna, however, has been gradually favored by Koreans as high-proteined foods according to the growth of GNP since the 1970's. In 1980, the canned tuna began to be produced and sold at home. And so the demand of raw tuna for cannaries has steeply increased not only for home but also for abroad, and stimulated the development of tuna purse seine fishery. The author carried out a study on the development of tuna purse seine fishery in Korea and countries concerned-the United States and Japan-because it is recognized to be significant for the further development of this fishery. Just as purse seining was originated in the United States, so tuna purse seining was also pioneered by Californian fishermen in the west coastal waters of the United States (Eastern Pacific Ocean). They started to produce the canned tuna in the early 1900's, and the demand for raw tuna began to be increased rapidly. In those days, tuna was mostly caught by pole-and-line, but the catch amount was far away from the demand. To satisfy this demand, they began to try out fishing tuna by the use of purse seine which had been born in the eastern waters in the 1820's and applied to catch white fishes in the western waters of the United States in those days. Even though their trial was technically successful through severe trial and error, a new problem was raised on the management of tuna resource and the preservation of porpoise which was occassionally caught with tuna. Then the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) was established by countries neighboring to the United States in 1950 and they set up the Commission's Yellowfin Regulatory Area (CYRA) and regulated the annual quota for yellowfin. Then, American owners tried to send their seiners to the Western African waters to expand the fishing ground in 1967 and to the Centeral-Western Pacfic in 1974, and the fishing ground was widely expanded. The number of the United States' purse seiners amounted to about 150 in 1980, but the enthusiasm was gradually cooled thereafter and the number of seiner was decreased to 67 in 1986. The landing of tuna by purse seiners in the United States after 1980 maintains 200 thousands M/T or so with a little increase despite the decreasing of domestic seiners. This shows that the landing by foreign seiners are increasing, compared with the landing by domestic seiners are decreasing. In Japan, even though purse seining was introduced in 1880, they had fished tuna by longline and pole-and -line until the tuna purse seining was introduced from the United States again. In the 1960's, Japanese tuna seiners made the exploratory fishing in the South-western Pacific and West African waters with a limited success. In 1971, the government-funded research center "JARMRAC" conducted the exploratory fishing which extended to the Central American waters, the Asia-Pacific Region and the South-western Pacific. It had also much difficulties, till they improved the fishing gear adaptable to the new fishing condition in the South-western Pacific. Japanese government has begun to licence 32 single seiners and 7 group seiners since 1980 and their standard has lasted up to now. The catch in the Pacific Islands Region amounted to 160 thousands M/T in 1986. Korea's tuna purse seine fishery was originated in 1971 by Jedong Industrial Co., Ltd. with three used tuna purse seiners purchased from the United States, and they began to fish in the Eastern Pacific, but failed owing to the superannuation of vessel and the infancy of fishing technique. The second challenge was done by Dongwon Industrial Co., Ltd. in 1979, with one used seiner purchased from the United States, and started to fish in the Eastern Pacific. Even though the first trial was almost unsuccessful but they could obtain the noticeable success by removing the vessel to the South-western Pacific in 1980. This success stimulated the Korean entherprisers to take part in this fishery, and the number of Korean tuna purse seiners has been increased rapidly in accordance with the increased demand for raw tuna. The number of vessels actually at work amounted to 36 in 1990 and they operate in the South-western Pacific. The annual catch of tuna by purse seiners amounted to 170 thousands M/T in 1990 and ranked to one of the major tuna purse seining countries in the world.