Palmyra

Fishing Boats Leave As Tuna Forsake Palmyra

BRIGHT hopes for a successful tuna fishery based on Palmyra have failed —at least for the present.

I Original fishing surveys carried out under the sponsorship of the US Fish & Wildlife Service were very successful, and on those results the Seattle firm of Kahler-Dhal commenced operations in mid-1954.

They employed a 150-ton converted schooner named Commonwealth, with 40 tons of refrigeration space, as the mother ship, and two smaller fishing vessels.

Catches were poor and Common wealth is now lying idle in Hono lulu. One of the fishing vessels, Brothers, was missing at sea off Kauai, Hawaii, in December, while returning from French Frigate Shoals where she has recently been operating more profitably. An occasional boat has gone down from Honolulu to Palmyra in re cent months, but with little success.

Plans of certain Honolulu hotel interests to establish a holiday hotel on Palmyra, which might have been boosted by success in the com mercial fishing sphere there, have jo far not been proceeded with, so the atoll now appears likely to continue its post-war isolation.