354 GRINNELL 



this agent takes a most cheerful view of the prospects of the 

 fisheries and declares that many new canneries are being 

 established a condition which is likely always to follow 

 a year in which there has been a good run yet an inspec- 

 tion of his report indicates steady and continuous diminu- 

 tion in the numbers of the fish taken, and strongly empha- 

 sizes the importance of measures to increase the supply 

 and protect the breeding fish. In describing the process 

 of salmon taking and canning he says : " It is reported 

 that with the help of steam power and the use of the lar- 

 gest size of seine as many as 75,000 salmon have been 

 taken at a single haul. But that never happens nowadays, 

 when a catch of 5,000 is accounted extremely good and 

 very often a few hundred only are secured." These few 

 words tell the whole story. 



Some slightly increased interest appears to be felt in 

 the direction of artificial propagation. The report im- 

 plies that four practical hatcheries are in operation in 

 Alaska, and says that their output of salmon fry will not 

 exceed 14,000,000 a number about equal to two-thirds of 

 the annual catch. As only about one percent of these fry 

 are supposed to mature, it is obvious that as yet the efforts 

 to supply the annual loss caused by commercial fishing are 

 entirely insignificant. 



Notwithstanding the wholesale destruction which is 

 thus going on, the salmon of Alaska are not in danger of 

 actual extermination. Long before anything of this kind 

 had taken place the canneries and indeed commercial 

 fishing of every description would have been abandoned 

 as unprofitable, and the streams even those that had 

 been most ruthlessly fished would slowly reestablish 

 themselves. But the selfish and shortsighted policy of 

 taking everything in sight cannot fail to render unprofit- 

 able in a very short time the whole Alaska canning in- 

 dustry, and to make it necessary to abandon the costly 



