The United States Fish Commission, formally known as the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, was an agency of the United States government created in 1871 to investigate, promote, and preserve the fisheries of the United States. In 1903, it was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries, sometimes referred to as the United States Fisheries Service, which operated until 1940. In 1940, the Bureau of Fisheries was abolished when its personnel and facilities became part of the newly created Fish and Wildlife Service, under the United States Department of the Interior.
Organizational history U.S. Fish Commission (1871–1903) By the 1860s, increasing human pressure on the fish and game resources of the United States had become apparent to the United States government,USFWS Fishery Circular 97, p. 4. and fisheries became the first aspect of the problem to receive U.S. government attention when Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, a Democratic congressmen from New Yorks 4th Congressional District, originated a bill in the United States House of Representatives to create the U.S. Fish Commission. It was established by a joint resolution (16 Stat. 593) of the United States Congress on February 9, 1871, as an independent agency of the U.S. government with a mandate to investigate the causes for the decrease of commercial fish and other aquatic animals in the coastal and inland waters of the United States, to recommend remedies to the U.S. Congress and the states, and to oversee restoration efforts.Circular 97, p. 5. With a budget of US$5,000, it began operations in 1871, organized to engage in scientific, statistical, and economic investigations of U.S. fisheries to study the "decrease of the food fishes of the seacoasts and to suggest remedial measures."
An expansion of the Fish Commission's mission followed quickly, when insistence by the American Fish Culturalist Association spurred the Congress in 1872 to add fish culture to the Fish Commission's responsibilities, with an appropriation of US$15,000 to establish fish hatcheries for the propagation of food fishes along the seacoasts and in the lakes of the United States. Following this change, the commission was organized into three divisions: the Division of Inquiry respecting Food-Fishes and Fishing Grounds, the Division of Fisheries, and the Division of Fish-Culture. The commission was led first by Spencer F. Baird, then George Brown Goode, Marshall McDonald, John J. Brice, and finally George M. Bowers.
U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (1903–1940) By an Act of Congress of February 14, 1903, the U.S. Fish Commission became part of the newly created United States Department of Commerce and Labor and was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries, with both the transfer and the name change effective on July 1, 1903. In 1913, the Department of Commerce and Labor was divided into the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Department of Labor, and the Bureau of Fisheries became part of the new Department of Commerce. Bowers led the Bureau of Fisheries, followed by Hugh McCormick Smith, Henry O'Malley, and finally Frank T. Bell.
In 1939, the Bureau of Fisheries was transferred to the United States Department of the Interior,Circular 97, p. 9. and on June 30, 1940, it merged with the Interior Department's Bureau of Biological Survey to form the new Fish and Wildlife Service, an element of the Interior Department.
Successor organizations In 1956, the Fish and Wildlife Service was reorganized as the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and divided its operations into two bureaus, the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, with the latter inheriting the history and heritage of the old U.S. Fish Commission and U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.Circular 97, p. 10. Upon the formation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the Department of Commerce on October 3, 1970, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries merged with the saltwater laboratories of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to form today's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), an element of NOAA, and the former Bureau of Commercial Fisheries research ships were resubordinated to the NMFS. During 1972 and 1973, these ships were integrated with those of other parts of NOAA to form the unified NOAA fleet. The NMFS is considered the modern-day successor to the U.S. Fish Commission and U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and the NOAA fleet of today also traces its history in part to them.
Activities The U.S. Fish Commission and U.S. Bureau of Fisheries carried out extensive investigations of the fishes, shellfish, marine mammals, and other life in the rivers, lakes, and marine waters of the United States and its territories, and its scientists corresponded widely with marine researchers around the world. The two agencies also scrutinized fishing technologies and designed, built, and operated hatcheries for a wide variety of finfish and shellfish. In the early 1900s the Bureau of Fisheries took on the responsibility for the enforcement of fishery and sealing regulations in Alaska, as well as for managing the harvest of fur-brearing animals in the Pribilof Islands and supporting the welfare of the Aleut communities of the Pribilofs. Both the Fish Commission and the Bureau of Fisheries operated a fleet of ships and boats for research, law enforcement, and transportation purposes.
Research and publications From 1871 to 1903, the commission's Annual Report to Congress detailed its efforts and findings in all of these areas. In 1880, it began to collect, analyze, and publish fishery statistics.Circular 97, p. 17. From 1881 to 1903, the commission also published an annual Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission summarizing the commission's Annual Report to Congress and correspondence; the bulletins included detailed catch reports from fishermen and commercial fishing port agents around the United States and Canada, reports and letters from naturalists and fish researchers around the United States and in other countries, and descriptions of the commission's exploratory cruises and fish hatchery efforts. Beginning in 1884, the Commission published the seminal work The Fisheries and Fisheries Industries of the United States. The commission's research stations and surveys collected significant data on U.S. fish and fishing grounds, with considerable material going to the Smithsonian Institution.
The Bureau of Fisheries carried on the Fish Commission's research work, its scientists and researchers pioneering such concepts as fisheries oceanography and fishery products utilization researchAnonymous, “Dr. Manning Passes,” Fisheries Service Bulletin, No. 292, September 1, 1939, p. 1 Accessed 10 August 1939 and publishing a wide variety of research results in the Bureau's Fisheries Service Bulletin—published monthly from June 1915Fisheries Service Bulletin No. 1, June 1915, p. 1.Aller, p. 2. until December 1940—as well as a Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries series, an Investigational Reports of the Bureau of Fisheries series, an Administrative Reports series, Economic Circulars, Fishery Circulars, an annual Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries published from 1931 to 1939, and other documents.Aller, pp. 103 ff, 109 ff, 114 ff, 118 ff, 123 ff. In 1937, the Bureau organized the Fishery Market News Service, which supported the U.S. commercial fishing industry by collecting and circulating information from widely scattered fisheries centers around the United States on fishery production, receipts, supply and demand, market prices, cold storage holdings, and imports and exports.
Four ships were built for the Fish Commission, including the schooner-rigged steamer USFC Fish Hawk, which served as a floating fish hatchery and fisheries research ship from 1880 to 1926; the brigantine-rigged steamer USFC Albatross, which operated as a fisheries research ship from 1882 to 1921 except for brief periods of United States Navy service in 1898 and from 1917 to 1919; and the sailing schooner USFC Grampus, which was commissioned in 1886 and operated as a fisheries research ship until 1917. The Bureau of Fisheries inherited these ships in 1903 and continued to operate a research fleet for a time, but it decommissioned its last true seagoing research ship, , in 1932, and when the Fish and Wildlife Service was created in 1940, it inherited no research vessels from the Bureau of Fisheries.Day, p. 6. The U.S. government did not operate another fisheries research vessel until the Fish and Wildlife Service commissioned in 1948.
National Fish Hatchery System When Congress expanded its mission to include fish culture in 1872, the Fish Commission laid the foundation for the National Fish Hatchery System, opening its first fish hatchery the same year. The Bureau of Fisheries and Fish and Wildlife Service carried on the fish hatchery program the Fish Commission began, and many of the fish hatcheries constructed by the Fish Commission before 1900 were among the 100 national hatcheries operating in 1960.Circular 97, p. 25. The Edenton Station hatchery, established in 1899, is an example of a hatchery constructed by the Fish Commission prior to 1900.
To supplement the hatcheries, the Fish Commission commissioned the steamer in 1880.NOAA History: R/V Fish Hawk 1880-1926 Purpose-built as a floating fish hatchery, she was intended to follow the seasonal runs of American shad up and down the coast of the United States, in addition to carrying out fisheries research duties. She operated until 1926.
Fishery regulation and enforcement Alaska After the United States purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire in 1867 and created the Department of Alaska (which became the District of Alaska in 1884 and the Territory of Alaska in 1912), enforcement of whatever regulations to protect fisheries and marine mammals that existed in Alaska fell to the revenue cutters of the United States Revenue-Marine, which in 1894 became the United States Revenue Cutter Service and was one of the ancestor organizations of the United States Coast Guard.NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center AFSC Historical Corner: Early Fisheries Enforcement Patrol Boats (1912-39) By order of the United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor on February 15, 1905, the Bureau of Fisheries received the responsibility for administering and enforcing laws protecting the Alaskan salmon fishery.Circular 97, p. 19. On June 14, 1906, the U.S. Congress passed the Alien Fisheries Act to protect and regulate fisheries in Alaska by placing restrictions on the use of fishing tackle and on cannery operations there and authorizing the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to enforce these regulations as well. In 1920, the Bureau's Alaska responsibilities expanded again, to include supervision of the conservation of marine mammals there, including sea otters, fur seals, and walruses.