Fishing for a Solution · Episode 3 of 12 · 20 min
Foreign Fleets and the Two-Hundred-Mile Line
On March 1, 1977 the United States drew a line two hundred miles out to sea and declared that inside it Americans would decide who fished. Off Alaska it cut across rich grounds worked by Japanese and Soviet fleets that had built the Bering Sea pollock catch past a million and a half metric tons a year. A coalition passed the 1976 Fishery Conservation and Management Act, followed by fifteen years of Americanization.
Who's who
- Warren G. Magnuson+1 more episodeWashington senator and Senate sponsor of the 1976 fisheries law
- Ted Stevens+4 more episodesAlaska senator who worked with Magnuson on the 1976 law
- Gerry Studds+1 more episodeMassachusetts representative who introduced the House bill
- Don Young+3 more episodesAlaska representative who supported the House bill
- Gerald Ford+4 more episodesPresident who signed the act on April 13, 1976
- Bob AlversonSeattle longline leader who chaired the council's advisory panel
- James BakerU.S. secretary of state who signed the 1990 Bering Sea boundary agreement
- Eduard ShevardnadzeSoviet foreign minister who signed the 1990 boundary agreement
Where it happens
- Bering Sea+10 more episodesRich fishing ground worked by foreign fleets
- Bristol Bay, Alaska+7 more episodesSite of the Japanese mothership fishery from 1933
- Gulf of Alaska+2 more episodesWhere foreign trawlers expanded in the early 1960s
- Seattle, Washington+7 more episodesWhere defenders say Americanization moved the profits
Timeline
- 1952U.S., Canada and Japan sign the North Pacific high seas fisheries convention
- 1959Soviet flounder fishery begins in the eastern Bering Sea
- April 13, 1976Ford signs the Fishery Conservation and Management Act
- March 1, 1977Two-hundred-mile fishery conservation zone takes effect
- 1980American Fisheries Promotion Act creates the fish and chips policy
- 1991American fleet harvests the entire Alaska groundfish catch
Still debated
Supporters credit the 1976 law with ending foreign overfishing, while critics say it mainly transferred ownership to the Pacific Northwest. Foreign catch figures were largely self-reported, and the dates of Americanization vary by a year or two depending on the measure used.
Connected episodes in other series
Ten National Standards: How the Fish Get CountedStorm Warning: America's Earth Science · Episode 6Also features Don Young, Gerry Studds
Taken AwayThe White Plague Returns · Episode 4Also features Ted Stevens
The Lottery and the End: The Botched Draw and the Draft's Last DaysGreeting: America and the Draft · Episode 11Also features Gerald Ford
How Title IX Passed in 1972 — 37 Words, Almost UnnoticedTitle IX · Episode 3Also features Gerald Ford