BRISTOL BAY AND ALASKA PENINSULA SALMON STATISTICS 



53 



effective conservation must result in a general lowering of the yield. It is but blind- 

 ing our eyes to an obvious if unwelcome fact to expect a resource that is being con- 

 served adequately and mtelligently to yield as much as it would yield, for a very 

 limited period, under conditions of unrestricted and intensive fishing. So far as the 

 data for the entire pack serve to indicate, it does not appear that the present restric- 

 tions have reduced the strain on the resource materially. There was a gradual 

 recovery after the depression of 1921, and the total pack of 1926 was the largest in 

 the history of the industry. The drop m 1927 may have been due, ua part, to an 

 increased effectiveness in the regulations and their enforcement, but there was an 

 unquestionable scarcity of fish in that year, so that the effect of the regulations would 

 seem, at best, to have had a relatively small influence in reducing the catch. It may 

 safely be predicted that effective conservation will mean, on the one hand, an increased 

 stringency in the regulations and, on the other hand, a generally reduced level of 

 the yield when compared with the general level that has been maintained for the 

 past 10 years. This statement applies to the salmon resources of Alaska as a whole. 

 The conditions as found in separate localities will be discussed below. 



The analyses of data presented in this report have been limited by lack of time, 

 but the data themselves are presented in full, so that it will be possible to make any 

 additional analyses in the future that may seem desirable. A careful recheckiug of 

 the work has been impossible, and no doubt various errors have crept in. It is our 

 hope, however, that none of these is great enough to affect our general conclusions 

 seriously. 



BRISTOL BAY 



The available statistics for the early years of the salmon fishery in Bristol Bay 

 are unsatisfactory in that they give records of the pack only, not of the catch, and in 

 these all species are combined. Beginning with 1893, however, the reports of the 

 special agents of the Treasury Department give the number of fish taken in the various 

 localities. This was continued until 1904, when the collection of statistics by the 

 Bureau of Fisheries began. Moser ' gives the best available record of the pack during 

 the years preceding 1893. Pracht ^ gives a record, substantially the same as that of 

 Moser, of the pack for 1892, but does not allocate all of the pack to a definite district. 

 Moser gives the pack for each cannery and the location of the cannery, so that it has 

 been possible to rearrange his data for these early years into the form given in 



Table 1. 



Table 1. — Salmon pack in Bristol Bay, 1884 to 1892, by cases 



' "Alaska salmon investigations in 1900 and 1901," by Jefferson F. Moser. Bulletin, United States Fish Commission, Vol. 

 XXI, 1901 (1902), pp. 173-398. Washington. 



 See report of special agent Max Pracht, dated Jan. 19, 1893, in Seal and Salmon Fisheries and General Resources of Alaska, 

 Vol. n (1898) , p. 385. Washington. 



