the Secretary of the Interior^/ was authorized by an act passed in 192l|.j 

 to promulgate such additional regulations as in his opinion might from 

 time to time be necessary. Under this authority^ numerous regulations 

 have been imposed en the fishery to keep the populations of salmon at a 

 high level of abundance with the ultimate objective of keeping the indus- 

 try at its optimum level of "production c The Federal Government, through 

 the Fish and Wildlife SerArice, also carries on extensive scientific studies 

 of the salmon populations of Alaska to obtain infornation en the life his- 

 tory of the species and to ascertain the causes of the fluctuations in 

 abundance from year to year, and strictly enforces the regulations govern- 

 ing the fishery. All this has been done with the sole intent of permitting 

 the fishery to take the greatest number of salmon each year that is con- 

 sistent v^ith the principles of sound conservationo The policy has met with 

 some success as is evidenced by the fact that after some 50 years of inten- 

 sive exploitation the populations, as a whole, are still at a high level of 

 abundanceo In fact, the commercial pack of salmon in the Bristol Bay area 

 in 1938 was the greatest in the history of the fishery <, 



The present healthy state of the fishery is not due to the presence 

 of an undiminishable number of salmon but to constant vigilance and gen- 

 erally wise management of the resourceo Examples of sudden declines in 

 abundance of certain populations as a result of localized overexploitation 

 have occurred in the past and should serve as a stern warning that should 

 adequate control of the fishery be lost, disaster - in the form of irrepar- 

 able depletion - is bound to follow. 



EXPERIMENTAL OFFSHORE FISHING 



On July 1, 1938, funds were made available to the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service to carry on investigations relating to the migration routes' and 

 availability of salmon in western Alaska and particularly the salmon of the 

 Bristol Bay Region o 



Through the cooperation of the U. S. Coast Guard, the U. S. 3. Redwing 

 was outfitted to carry en oceanographic and related studies in v/estern 

 Alaska (eastern Bering Sea) and investigations were conducted in 1938, 1939, 



1 / As used herein the term "Secretary of the Interior" refers to the 

 Secretary of Commerce prior to July 1, 1939 and the Secretary of the 

 Interior from that date. The Fish and Wildlife Service vtas originally es- 

 tablished on February 9, I87I, as the Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 

 an independent agencyj it was redesignated the Bureau of Fisheries on 

 July 1, 1903 J when it was by law included in the newly created Department 

 of Commerce and Labor. On July 1, 1939, the Bureau was transferred to 

 the Departmient of the Interior, and on June 30, 19U0, it was merged with 

 the Bureau of Biological Survey and bfecame the Fish and Wildlife Service. 



