been one of the wonderful salmon streams of the world, perhaps the most remarkable of all when the length is considered. In 1890 nearly half of the whole pack of Alaska was made there. In 1893 there were seven canneries on its banks; today there are none. There are records of 100,000 salmon being taken at one haul of the sceine. There are statements that the stream was at times so thronged with fish that it was impossible to cross the river with a rowboat. A fishing war was prosecuted which was carried on with steam tugs and Winchester rifles. Anchors were dropped into the nets of rivals, and then fishermen, nets and fish drawn to shore by powerful steam winches. The weaker were crowded off the grounds, and finally the more powerful companies were compelled to settle the case in the court upon an injunction proceeding.

A special agent of the Fisheries Department reported as follows: "I found the fishermen with their nets in the narrowest part of the Karluk River, and so systematically do they work the nets that I could not see how it was possible for a fish to pass them to the spawning grounds." 18

The stream began to show the effects of overfishing, and a hatchery was established in 1891. This delayed the crisis, but a hearing became necessary before the Bureau of Fisheries in December of 1917, and the result was the closing of the stream to commercial fishing.

The Copper River has been so closely fished that the number taken has been restricted by special order of the Bureau of Fisheries, and the Bering River is in the same condition. During the present year a number of employes of the bureau have been employed in patroling the streams in Southeastern Alaska, but the number so protected is but a few out of many.

In the earlier days of the industry, when the salmon in a certain locality became exhausted, the cannery moved to a new location or fished in other places. The overflow from other streams, together with the natural increase, restocked the waters in the course of a few years. This was the case with the Globokoe fishery, which has again become a producer, and two canneries are now projected to operate in the vicinity of the place which was denuded of fish in the '90's. At present every locality is so closely fished that there is no overflow to restore the depleted streams.

The spawning pools of the Chilkat River have but a fraction of of the number which formerly frequented them. The inlets of Klawak and Hetta yield more than half the fish that were taken there when

18 Ibid., p. 445.

the fisheries were first established at those places. This is the more marked because there have been hatcheries on both inlets for years, and the natural production with the hatchery in addition is not equal to the demand imposed.

As early as 1893 the canning companies began to install hatcheries, thus acknowledging the need of assisting nature to keep up the supply of fish, which was already beginning to show signs of exhaustion in certain localities. The first attempt was at Karluk in 1891, but it was not successful until 1896. In 1892 Captain John C. Callbreath placed one on Kuiu Island. Other hatcheries were built, until at present there are seven in operation, two of which belong to the governmeent and five are owned by private parties.19 The number of fry liberated during the season of 1915-1916 was 142,964,140, and the total number released from 1893 to 1916 has been 1,306,082,257.20 This is a material assistance in replenishing the supply, but does not at all take the place of the natural supply when the fish are allowed to reach their breeding grounds.

There were no taxes imposed upon the salmon fisheries of Alaska from 1867 to 1899. Under the Act of Congress of March 2, 1899, a tax of four cents a case was placed on each case of salmon canned and ten cents per barrel on salted salmon.

The necessity for replenishing the waters with fish was made the basis for a plea to Congress in 1906, and upon it a law was passed providing for the rebate of the taxes imposed as follows:

"Section 2. That the catch and pack of salmon made in Alaska by the owners of private salmon hatcheries operated in Alaska shall be exempt from all license fees and taxation of every nature at the rate of ten cases of canned salmon to every one thousand red or king salmon fry liberated, upon the following conditions."

The conditions provided for inspection of the hatchery, and upon approval of the conditions thereafter credit should be given for fry released according to the sworn statement of the agent or superintendent of the hatchery each year. Under this law there has been rebated to the canneries from 1906 to 1917 over a quarter of a million dollars from the Alaska Fund, and in 1913 the rebate amountd to the sum of $59,464.24.21

The government has attempted to tally the escape of fish from the fishermen at the Wood River Reservation on Bristol Bay. The record unfortunately is not complete for a series of years, but the years

19 Cobb, Pacific Salmon Fisheries (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917), p. 249. 20 Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries in 1916 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917), p. 30.

21 Ibid., p. 31.

taken show a small escape in 1915 as compared with 1908, the first year the tally was kept.

22

The means of procuring the fish are by gill nets, seines, traps, dip nets, gaffs, spears, etc., but principally by the first three. The number of appliances has more than doubled in the past ten years, the catch of fish is more than twice that of ten years past, but the average catch to each appliance in use is but a little more than half.23 In 1910 there were 33,677,254 fish taken in Alaska; in 1916 there were 72,055,971, or more than twice as many. In the latter year there must have been nearly forty million less fish that reached the spawning grounds as compared with the former year. No ordinary number of hatcheries could compensate for this reduction. The female salmon spawns 3,500 eggs. Provided half of these fish were female, the reduction would be seventy billions of eggs, or nearly seventy times as many as all the fry released in the hatcheries of Alaska since the first release to the last year.

There is and has been a great waste of fish. Accidents cause loss. Sometimes there are thousands of fish that spoil because the cannery cannot take care of the whole catch, or for other reasons. In former years the salmon bellies only were salted, while the thicker part of the meat was thrown away. Many other kinds of fish are taken and thrown back to the sea, because no other fish than salmon is canned. The traps and seines take many others that become a total loss. The waste in cleaning is about one-third of the total weight, and at almost every cannery this is thrown into the sea to pollute the

22 "The following table shows for each year since 1908 the commercial catch of salmon made in Nushagak Bay, the number of fish passing from Wood River into Lake Aleknagik, the total of both and the percentage of salmon that escaped the fishermen :

John N. Cobb, Pacific Salmon Fisheries (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917).

23 Traps were very little in use in Alaska before 1900. The increase in number of the different appliances and the decrease in their average catch is illustrated by the following table:

Total Catch
1907

Total Catch
1916
23,982,614

Average

64,296

Seines

213

Gill nets

945

11,096,946

11,742

3,051

582,319

144,715

Totals

34,900,068

72,055,971

The data for above table is from the Alaska Fisheries and Fur Industries, for the respective years (Washington, Government Printing Office).

water. At some points this waste is being utilized for by-products, and it is to be hoped that all will soon be saved. At Anchorage, from the small stream called Ship Creek, during 1916, over a thousand fish were wantonly gaffed for amusement during ten days of the running season and thrown back into the stream after being killed.

The result of the present methods will in all probability be the practical destruction of the industry in the near future unless a radical and thorough change is made. The scarcity of labor in the Territory during the present year may curtail the catch, and in this manner retard the destruction, but every effort is being made to take every fish procurable. The result of the uncontrolled exploitation of a public resource in wild life is shown by the extermination of the seals of the southern seas, the depletion of the Pribylof Herd, the extermination of the buffalo and the wild pigeon, the almost complete extinction of the sea otter, the great decrease of the whale and the walrus. In 1892 there were 200,000 cases of salmon packed on the Sacramento River in California; in 1906 there were none. In 1901 were were 998,913 cases of salmon packed on the Fraser River in British Columbia24; in 1915 there were but 289,199 cases, and less since that time, until the Dominion government is considering closing the stream to commercial fishing in whole or in part.

The market price of the salmon is fixed by the combination of the great companies. They dictate the price it shall be placed on the market at the opening of the season. This price has risen from $4.60 per case in 1913 to $9.40 per case in 1917 on Alaska red salmon, and on Alaska pink it has risen from $2.60 per case to $6.60 in the same time. The pack was increased from 3,739,185 cases in the former year to 5,922,320 cases in the latter. Part of the increase in price went to small fishermen, but nearly one-third of the fish are taken by traps which are owned by the cannery corporations. According to the report of the Federal Trade Commission, the average profit of ninety companies in the business on the Pacific Coast, comprising 87 per cent. of the pack, or 7,426,678 full cases, was $2.28 per case, or 52.8 per cent. on the net investment in the business." At this rate of income they will have realized a return of their capital in three years with as much profit as the average investor secures in ten years, and they can afford to junk their entire plant if the salmon run fails.

25

་

The whale in Alaska waters is depleted,the sea otter is gone, the seal is undergoing a series of years of restoration. One of the greatest of the food supplies of the North is being threatened. The

24 Ibid., p. 172.

25 U. S. Official Bulletin, June 29, 1918, p. 15.

means of livelihood of thirty thousand of the native people depends upon the salmon, and its destruction means suffering and death to them. If the waters are depleted it means a watery desert for years, and one which will require hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of time to restock.

The fishery in Alaska has heretofore been controlled by the general government and the laws relating to it have been enacted by Congress. To get a correct understanding of the conditions in a legislative body so far from the scene of action is a difficult matter, and the whole body of the nation is less interested in the resources of a territory than are the residents of that territory. The other states and territories have had the power to add their protection to that of the national government, but this has been denied to Alaska. There are two alternatives presented: one, to allow Alaska the right to add her assistance with power to enact laws on the fisheries; the other, for the United States to take the fisheries in hand as a war measure and limit the amount to be taken from each locality, and thus remove the ruinous competition which exists at the present.

CLARENCE L. ANDREWS.