Post-War Reconnaissance of Japanese Fishery and Ocean Science and Its Contribution to the Development of U.S. Scientific Programs: 1947–1954

Abstract

This chapter examines the over-looked contribution of Japanese scientists to ocean science and the construction of recruitment fisheries oceanography, the study of the effects of climate and ocean variability on fish abundance. After World War II, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worked with the Supreme Commander Allied Powers staff in Tokyo to find and translate scientific documents about tuna and oceanography, for use by Americans trying to start fisheries in former Japanese waters. Determining the migration patterns of the fish was essential to catching them, and the Japanese translations greatly influenced “Progress in Pacific Oceanic Fishery Investigations, 1950-53.” The document pioneers the integration of fisheries, oceanography, and meteorology to better understand the dynamic structure of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, and the importance of upwelling and frontal structures as they relate to distribution and abundance of Pacific tunas. The science of finding the fish was a critical step in the global expansion of tuna fishing throughout the subsequent decades. While the paper acknowledged the Japanese contribution to the construction of the science, the publication also masked the importance of the contribution.