ALASKA FISHERY AND FUR-SEAL INDUSTRIES. 1927 93 



order restraining Frank Smith from fishing his trap, and a temporary 

 injunction was issued restraining him from fishing and ordering that 

 webbing be removed from the trap. 



Difficulties were experienced in connection with alleged illegal 

 herring fishing in Afognak waters, and the Coast Guard cutter 

 Algonquin visited the island to conduct an investigation of the matter. 



In the Bristol Bay district 11 natives were arrested for fishing with 

 stake nets at Ekuk during weekly closed periods. Fines ranging 

 from $1 to $43 and aggregating $156 were imposed. Two men 

 operating a boat of the Alaska Packers Association and fishing off 

 Ekuk Spit with a small-mesh net before the opening of the fishing 

 season were fined $25 each, and two others fishing with a boat of the 

 Alaska Salmon Co. 2 miles above markers in the Nushagak River 

 were fined $25 each by the local United States commissioner. Two 

 men with a boat of the Alaska Packers Association and two with 

 one of the Red Salmon Canning Co.'s boats were fined $75 each, a 

 total of $300, for fishing dm'ing a weekly closed period at the mouth 

 of the Naknek River. 



ROBBERY OF FISH TRAPS 



Following his conviction by the court at Ketchikan in September, 

 1926, for robbery of fish from a trap belonging to the Pure Food Fish 

 Co., Val Klemm sued out a writ of error in the Ninth Circuit Court of 

 Appeals, contending that it did not appear from the indictment that 

 the company had any property in the fish confined in the trap and 

 that therefore no crime was committed. Circuit Judge Rudkin 

 affirmed the judgment of the district court, citing the opinion of the 

 court in Miller v. United States (C. C. A.), 242 F.907, L. R. A. 1918A, 

 545, as follows: 



Fish in the Atlantic Ocean belong to nobody until they have been reduced to 

 possession. After this has been done, the individual that has acquired the pos- 

 session gains a qualified right of property that may be the subject of larceny. 

 They are reduced to possession when the individual so confines them within 

 his immediate power that they can not escape and resume their natural liberty. 



The action of the Circuit Court of Appeals in affirming the decision 

 of the district court will be a further deterrent to the larceny of fish 

 from traps in Alaskan waters. It will further correct the erroneous 

 impression, which had prevailed more or less generally, that trap 

 operators had no legal rights in fish impounded in traps until removed 

 from the water. 



TERRITORIAL FISHERY LEGISLATION 



The Alaska legislature, at its biennial session in 1927, repealed 

 chapter 75 of the laws of 1917 and chapter 30 of the laws of 1919, with 

 amendments thereto, including chapter 38 of the laws of 1919, which 

 provided for the establishing of fish hatcheries and the creating of a 

 territorial fish commission. 



An act was passed authorizing the Territorial Board of Road 

 Commissioners to lease or otherwise care for all property in possession 

 of the Territorial Fish Commission and to carry on the work formerly 

 conducted by the commission, provided that all such work should be 

 terminated on or before October 1, 1927, and making an appropria- 

 tion of $3,000 therefor. The act further provided for engaging A. J. 



