418 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Much along this Hne has been done by other biologists, in Canada, 

 the United States, and Japan, and it is hoped that some day a full 

 report on the natural history of the Pacific salmons may be prepared 

 and published. 



MARKING SALMON 



A favorite recreation for quite a number of Pacific coast people 

 has been the marking of salmon fry in order to find out the age at 

 which they return to spawn, the rate of growth, etc. Scattered 

 through the reports of the various State fish commissions,, and 

 occasionally in the reports of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, 

 are to be found detailed reports of such markings and the sometimes 

 remarkable results attained, apparently at varying periods subsequent 

 to the marking. 



All sorts of marks were employed. The favorite was the removal 

 of the adipose fin, the experimenters appearing to be of the opinion 

 that the fish would miss this the least of any. However, the entire 

 or partial removal of nearly every fin was practiced by some one or 

 other of the many experimenters. Sometimes a V or a U was 

 punched out of the tail or the gill cover, and in one or two instances 

 a tag was employed. 



In time these marking experiments became so numerous, and so 

 imperfect a record was kept of them by any central authority, that 

 frec^uently it was impossible to tell, when an apparently marked 

 specimen was obtained, where and when it was marked, and as a 

 result but little dependence could have been placed upon them even 

 had there been no other factors conspiring to vitiate their value. 



Fishermen are continually finding in their nets salmon which they 

 feel sure have been marked by some hatchery. Scores of times in 

 the course of his various investigations of the fisheries of this coast 

 the writer has been told of or shown specimens which the fishermen 

 thought had been marked. Many of these marks were on the side of 

 the fish and represented an M or W, depending upon the angle from 

 which viewed, and it was impossible, generally, to convince the fisher- 

 men that this mark was caused by the twine of his gill net pressing 

 on the side of the fish. The obvious fact that a fish could not survive 

 when in the fry stage the infliction of such a mark did not occur to 

 them. 



Frequently the scars left by the suctorial organs of the lamprey 

 have been mistakenly supposed to be hatchery marks. This scar 

 resembles very closely a date stamp on a canceled letter. 



One of the most interesting cases of salmon marking, and one 

 which drives home the necessity for accepting reports of returns from 

 such markings with extreme caution, is that of F. M. Chamberlain, 

 then naturalist of the Bureau of Fisheries steamer Albatross, on the 

 Naha Stream in Alaska. 



In August, 1903, 1,600 red salmon fry, reared for the purpose from 

 the 1902 eggs, at the Fortmann hatchery of the Alaska Packers 

 Association, near Loring, Alaska, were marked by Mr. Chamberlain 

 by excising both ventrals with fine curved scissors. The fry were 

 released in the Naha River as soon as marked, at which time they 

 were about three months old. 



In 1906 between 50 and 100 adult reds with ventral fins missing 

 were reported by the superintendent of the hatchery at Yes Bay, 

 which is located on the northern side of Behm Canal (Naha being on 



