fishery in this area can be appreciated by those who 

 have attempted such work. Our evaluation has been 

 possible only because of the efforts of the early 

 biologists who collected and preserved the data under 

 difficult conditions. Any criticisms of the techniques 

 or any deficiencies noted in the programs are 

 presented only to facilitate the design of future ex- 

 periments. 



HISTORICAL REVIEW 



The first major tagging experiments on pink salmon 

 in southeastern Alaska were conducted in 1924 and 

 1925 by the Bureau of Fisheries under the direction of 

 Willis H. Rich (Rich 1927) "... to discover the main 

 routes of the salmon migrating through the maze of 

 channels of the Alexander Archipelago and the dis- 

 tribution of the fish following these routes to the 

 various spawning grounds." This work was continued 

 by Rich and Suomela (1929) and Rich and Morton 

 (1930). 



One of the most significant findings of these early 

 workers was the virtual separation of the southeastern 

 Alaska fishery into two distinct areas — one to the 

 north of Kuiu, Kupreanof, and Mitkof islands, and 

 the other to the south. The interchange of tagged pink 

 salmon between these areas was so small that for all 

 practical purposes the areas could be considered 

 separate. The northern area included Icy Strait, Lynn 

 Canal, Chatham Strait, Frederick Sound, and 

 Stephens Passage; the southern area included 

 Sumner Strait, Clarence Strait, and the south and 

 west coasts of Prince of Wales Island. 



Tagged pink salmon released in Icy Strait moved 

 eastward and then southward in Chatham Strait to 

 Frederick Sound. In Frederick Sound they traveled 

 eastward and then northward. Most of the pink 

 salmon released in lower Chatham Strait during mid- 

 July moved into Frederick Sound, and those released 

 in early August moved north into upper Chatham 

 Strait and south into Sumner Strait. Fish released in 

 Frederick Sound in early August distributed 

 themselves throughout Frederick Sound and along 

 Stephens Passage. 



An extensive series of experiments in the southern 

 area and some tagging experiments in the northern 

 portion of southeastern Alaska were reported by 

 Verhoeven.' Verhoeven concluded that the pink 

 salmon spawning migration is a "random to-and-fro" 

 wandering through the fishery. He maintained that 

 the apparent directional tendencies found by other in- 

 vestigators resulted from random movement com- 

 bined with the location of the fishery in relation to the 

 location of the tagging stations. The validity of 



'Verhoeven, L. A. 1952. A report to the salmon fishing industry of 

 Alaska on the results of the 1947 tagging experiments. Unpublished 

 manuscript, 21 p. Fisheries Research Institute, University of Wash- 

 ington, Seattle, WA 98195. 



Verhoeven's hypothesis of random to-and-fro move- 

 ment is of critical importance to the formulation of an 

 acceptable policy for regulating the fishery. If pink 

 salmon move randomly within an area, any 

 geographical variation in fishing intensity in the area 

 would not differentially affect the population. Only 

 the total fishing pressure would determine the escape- 

 ment of any particular stream and would affect all 

 races in the same manner. The primary function of 

 management would then be to define each of these 

 homogeneous areas and to regulate each area as one 

 unit. 



The independence of salmon stocks in the southern 

 and northern portions of southeastern Alaska was also 

 shown by Verhoeven (citation in footnote 6, Figs. 25, 

 26). 



During 1950, 17,400 pink salmon were tagged in Icy 

 Strait and upper Chatham Strait by the FWS (Elling 

 and Macy 1955). Tagged fish were released daily from 

 tagging stations in Icy Strait from 25 July through 14 

 August, ending the day before the opening of the com- 

 mercial fishing season. Generally speaking, the results 

 of the 1950 tagging experiments agreed with the 

 results of Rich and his colleagues in the twenties. 

 Stream surveys, combined with a daily schedule of 

 tagging, enabled Elling and Macy (1955) to determine 

 when pink salmon destined for a particular spawning 

 stream passed the various tagging sites. However, the 

 limited period during which daily releases were made 

 restricted the utility of the experiments. Different 

 races of pink salmon passing the Icy Strait tagging 

 stations were not separated in time into clear-cut 

 groups. Elling and Macy (1955) found that fish bound 

 for streams in Stephens Passage, Chatham Strait, and 

 Icy Strait passed through Icy Strait about the same 

 time. 



EXPERIMENTAL AND ANALYTIC 

 METHODS 



Tags and Tagging 



The method used in tagging during the 1938-42 and 

 1945 experiments was described to us by S. J. 

 Hutchinson in a personal interview. S. J. Hutchinson 

 participated in the experiments. Fish were captured 

 in salmon traps and were tagged with a metal strap 

 tag clipped to the dorsal margin of the caudal fin. The 

 method of handling during tagging was similar to that 

 described by Davidson and Christey (1938). 



In 1938-41, tags were serially numbered so that each 

 fish could be identified on recovery. In 1942 and 1945, 

 a single number was used to identify all fish tagged in 

 an experiment, and in some cases the same identifica- 

 tion number was used for more than one experiment. 

 Problems arising from the confusion between tags 

 recovered from two experiments in 1945 will be dis- 

 cussed in the section on migration through Peril 

 Strait. 



