FT.—l5

Figures for the principal kinds of frozen fish exported for the year 1944, with the previous (official) year's totals in parentheses, are as follows

The above-mentioned seven kinds made up 75-5 per cent, by weight and 76-9 per cent, by value of the frozen fish exported from New Zealand. The rest of the total of this class, consisting of twentyfour different kinds of fish, amounted to a total weight of 4,064 cwt., with a value of £16,988. Interesting new items among these latter were 97 cwt. of eels, valued at £356, and 53 cwt. of swordfish (marlin), valued at £249. Sardines Landings of sardines for the Picton cannery in the year 1944: totalled 4,281 cwt. This represents a substantial decline compared with the previous year and is little more than half the total for the year 1942-43. Although one catch of record dimensions was made in December, 1943, the quest for fish throughout the whole of that summer was difficult and disappointing, and was more successful in Pelorus Sound than in Queen Charlotte Sound, which had hitherto been the scene of the most productive operations. The shoals appeared to be small and scattered, and the fish that were taken were considerably smaller in size than previously. The general scarcity continued throughout the winter and spring. Large shoals suddenly appeared in Pelorus Sound in November, but the problem of transporting these very perishable fish via the Portage to the cannery in Picton has presented many difficulties. Only one boat has been continuously engaged in fishing for cannery supplies, but vessels of the Island Bay line-fishing fleet make occasional visits to the Marlborough Sounds to net sardines for use as bait. Although various initial difficulties have been overcome, this industry must still be regarded as in the pioneering stage, operating somewhat tentatively, with the important problem of locating the fish in due season and in catchable quantities, which is a matter of understanding the underlying causes of their migrations, still to be elucidated. Reports have been received, through the Marine Biologist, of the recent reappearance of large shoals of sardine-like fish off the Otago coast. Here, too, there is a prospect, though so far as can be seen at present a precarious one, of industrial exploitation of a marine product hitherto unutilized. Fish-liver Oil Among other developments in the utilization of fishery products, hitherto wasted, that have been more or less forced upon us by conditions arising out of the war, the fish-liver-oil industry is one of the most important and probably has the best chance of continuing to be a good thing in both its commercial and social aspects after the return of normal economic conditions. During the year 1944 a total weight of 544,300 lb. of fish livers was processed at the two established factories for which not less than £24,000 had been paid to fishermen and from which not less than 20,000 gallons of oil were produced. Exports of fish-liver oils during the year totalled 19,251 gallons. 11l the same period 15,340 gallons of cod-liver oil and 417 gallons of halibut-liver oil were imported This apparent anomaly perhaps requires explanation. The great cod fisheries of the North Atlantic are the sources of the cod-liver oil of commerce which has been used for a great many years in medicine, more especially for the treatment of rickets and respiratory disease. Only in recent years has science provided an explanation of the factors that are responsible for the therapeutic virtues of cod-liver oil —viz., the vitamins A and D — and subsequently led to the discovery of the same vitamins in the skin, flesh, viscera, but particularly in the liver, of numerous other species of fish. Compared with the cod, some species have less and others more of AorofD or of both, and in some the oil is more difficult to extract. The technology of processing the raw material for the extraction of the most and best oil, and the study of the properties of such oils, have made rapid progress in the last ten years, and will doubtless continue to advance and develop. Cod-liver oil remains the " classic " vitamin oil by virtue of its priority in the fields of commerce and pharmacy, its outstanding abundance, and its fairly rich content of the two vitamins in convenient proportions for therapeutic purposes. Some of our relatively abundant New Zealand fish provide oils that are richer in vitamins. For example, ling has sixteen times as much A and five times as much D ; groper (hapuku) has fifty times the potency in A and twenty-two times in D ; kingfish, two hundred times as much A and probably about a hundred times as much D. Ling-liver oil, like that of the true cod, is relatively easy of extraction, which is not the case with that of groper and kingfish. Livers from various species of shark yield copious amounts of oils that are particularly rich in vitamin A—in some cases up to over one hundred times as much as in cod-liver oil—but poor in vitamin D. A large proportion of the oil produced in New Zealand is obtained from vitamin-A-rich shark livers. Nutritional authorities consider that our ordinary New Zealand diet is deficient in vitamin D, more especially for juvenile and maternity requirements, but there is, or there need be, no deficiency of vitamin A. Shark liver and other oils very rich in vitamin A are thus available for export. And this last statement can be strengthened by adding that practically all the rest of the world is undersupplied, while to the populations of those countries which are the concern of UNRRA, their restoration to anything like normal health is absolutely dependent on their receiving, among the " protective " food factors, increased amounts of this vitamin.

3—H. 15

21

Quantity. Value. Cwt. £ £ Barracouta .. .. .. .. 3,786 (1,895) 14,014 (6,074) Blue cod .. .. .. .. 3,530 (4,104) 18,117 (21,057) Soles .. .. .. .. 1,394 (1,898) 7,119 (9,229) Red cod .. .. .. .. 1,104 (1,441) 3,046 (3,906) Snapper .. .. .. .. 1,029 (1,112) 6,044 (6,487) Tarahiki .. .. .. .. 959 (1,398) 4,030 (4,473) Flounder .. 762 (1.038) 4,142 (5,408)