PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 15 



The prmcipal thing that this and some of the other many experi- 

 ments in sahnon marking prove is that the percentage of salmon 

 which accidentally lose, either through disease or the attacks of their 

 many enemies, one or more of their fins, or portions of same, is much 

 larger than most people suppose. Out of the many millions taken 

 annually in commercial and fish cultural operations it is not surprising 

 that some should be minus such exposed portions of their anatomy 

 and this percentage would doubtless be found to be considerable were 

 particular attention directed toward it. As it is now, it is only 

 occasionally that the fisherman notices such loss, or mentions the 

 same when he does, unless his attention has been directed to it by 

 particular inquiry. In the Chamberlain experiment, for instance, 

 after 1907 considerable publicity was given to tlie searcii for such 

 marked fish, and the ^^Titer, in his travels through southeast Alaska 

 during the succeeding years imtil the end of 1911, frequentl}- was told 

 by fishermen that they had caught salmon with missing fins. Inr^uiry 

 developed that while a few of the lost fins were the same as Chamber- 

 lain had excised, a number were entirely different fins, showing that 

 when the attention of fis]iermen was directed especially in this line 

 many deformed fish would be found. 



The confusion resuUing from the many marking experiments 

 carried on by difTerent j)cople shows the* absolute necessit}' of some 

 central authority regulating them if any real results are to be achieved 

 from this line of endeavor. In 1 90S tlie Secretary of Commerce, under 

 authority of sections 11 and 12 of the Alaska fisheries law, directed 

 that any persons desiring to mark and release salmon in Alaska first 

 consult ^^ath and secure the written consent of the Commissioner of 

 Fisheries or of the agent at the salmon fisheries of Alaska. It would 

 be an excellent thing if some such control could also be exercised 

 over these operations in the coastal States. 



During the year 1916 Dr. Charles II. Gilbert, of Stanford Univer- 

 sity, assisted by Willis H. Kich, conducted salmon-marking experi- 

 ments on an extensive scale. Late in the fall of 1915 a consignment 

 of 100,000 eggs of the red salmon was forwarded to Seattle, Wash., 

 from the station of the Bureau of Fisheries at Yes Bay, Alaska, of 

 which 50,000 were reshipped to the Anderson Lake hatchery of the 

 British Columbia Fisheries Department, located on the ocean side of 

 Vancouver Island. The remaining 50,000 were sent to the Bureau 

 of Fisheries hatchery at Quinault Lake, near the coast of Washington. 

 The intention was as soon as the fry, hatched from these eggs, had 

 developed into fingerlings to mark each lot with a distinctive marking 

 and plant them in waters near the hatcheries, with the object of 



E roving that the adult fish would return to the stream in which they 

 ad passed their early existence, no matter where tlie eggs were taken. 

 This plan could not be carried out at Anderson Lake, as the young 

 fish resulting from the eggs, which were sent there, were not strcmg 

 enough to survive the experiment. They were I'lcrefore liberated 

 without marking. Those hatched at (Quinault I^akc were marked, 

 however, and liberated in the summer of 1916. Dr. Gilbert has 

 strong hopes that upon the return of the marked fish important 

 data relatmg to the life history of the species will be obtained. 



During Pebruary, March, and A[)ril, 1!H6, some 50,000 yearling 

 sockeyes, which had been reansd at the Bonneville hatchery of the 

 Oregon Fish and Game Commission from eggs obtained from the Yes 



