OUR VANISHING FOOD FISH 



551 



and the other on the Susquehanna 

 River. 



The figures of these stations for the 

 past three seasons are as follows : 



Potomac fishery .*— 1912, 88,727,000 ; 

 1913, 30,913,000 flDl-l, 29,808,000. 



Susquehanna fishery. f — 1912, 12,- 



175,000; 1913, 0,8(31,000; 191-1, 2,- 



367,000. 



OTHER EVIDENCE. 



The same record of unreasoning de- 

 struction is reported from nearly every 

 coast State. 



The New England States lament the 

 disappearance of their salmon, once 

 taken in abundance on the south side of 

 Cape Cod. In the Connecticut and 

 Merrimac rivers that fish is practically 

 destroyed. 



The striped bass has almost entirely 

 disappeared from the rivers of New 

 England, although they were taken in 

 great numbers by the early colonists in 

 that country. 



The smelt has become commercially 

 extinct. 



Only a few of the shad remain, 

 although that fish was once in such 

 abundance that the Puritans spread 

 them upon their land as fertilizer. 



Approximately, the same record is 

 duplicated in the southern coast States. 



From the Gulf coast comes a repeti- 

 tion of the same story, the unbridled 

 destruction by man having almost de- 

 populated the waters of their most val- 

 uable food fish. 



On the Pacific coast we hear the echo 

 of like complaint. 



About ten years ago the leaping tuna 

 or horse mackerel, which is one of the 

 most important fishes in Europe in the 

 Mediterranean Sea, was so common 

 during the summer months olT Santa 

 Catalina Island, California, that they 

 would be taken by the ton. not only in 

 nets, but on hand lines. The favorite 

 spawning grounds of these fish, as well 

 as those of many other valuable game 

 fishes, was in the kelp in tbc smooth 

 waters which surround the Santa Cata- 

 lina and San Clements Islands. As a 

 result of unrestricted netting, they be- 

 came less year after year, until they 

 were almost destroyed. 



* The Potomac Fishery is at Bryan Point. 

 t The Susquehanna Fishery is at Battery I 



The fisheries along the Santa Cata- 

 lina Islands decreased more than 75 

 per cent in twenty years, and conditions 

 for a time were seriously menacing to 

 the fish food supply of southern Cali- 

 fornia. 



Male Salmon. 



The State of Ohio had from early 

 times permitted net fishing without reg- 

 ulations. A result of the lack of reg- 

 ulations was the placing of nets in Lake 

 Erie for almost interminable distances. 

 One line of nets at Sandusky extended 

 a distance of ten miles from the shore. 

 As a consequence of this indiscriminate 

 net fishing the whitefish, the most 

 valuable fish in Lake Erie, decreased 

 over 80 per cent between 1885 and 1903. 



EXTERMINATION OE THE STURGEONS. 



No more striking illustration of the 

 profligacy of American fishermen can 

 be found than that of the history of the 

 sturgeons. For many years these large, 



Maryland, 

 sland. helow Havre de Grace, Maryland. 



