Fish and Fishermen 233 



ders had been so outstandingly successful, it was found un- 

 necessary to use the elevators, and they never have been 

 used except experimentally. 



The planners began to breathe more easily. The ladders 

 had done all that they had hoped in passing the spawners 

 upstream, but would the little fish be able to return success- 

 fully to the ocean? If they did not, then the whole project 

 was a failure. Would they find their way down through the 

 backwaters, reaching forty-five miles upstream, with only a 

 very weak current to guide them? Would they safely nego- 

 tiate the dam? Bypasses had been provided to carry them 

 down, but the flow of water through these was infinitesimal 

 compared to that which went over the spillway and through 

 the turbines. If they entered the turbine headgates, what 

 would happen to them? The runners are twenty-three feet 

 in diameter, with a minimum opening of one foot between 

 the blades, and revolve only seventy-five times per minute. 

 Would the hope that the little fish could go through them 

 unharmed prove well-founded? 



Again only time could tell. Fish going upstream the first 

 season were the offspring of generations that had spawned 

 above Bonneville unhindered by any dam. But by the end 

 of the fourth year, practically all the upstream migrants 

 would have to be descendants of fish that had succeeded in 

 passing over the dam in both directions. How would their 

 numbers compare with the earlier years? 



Ten seasons have now elapsed since the dam was com- 

 pleted. Ten counts have been made. There have been fluc- 

 tuations, and some years, when the counts were low, the 

 situation has looked ominous. But the latest available figures, 

 those for 1947, show over 787,0(X) salmonid fishes passing 

 up over the dam on their way to spawn, a greater number 

 than has ever been recorded before. In the face of those fig- 

 ures there can be no further doubt: not only do the spawners 



