PROPAGATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES, 1930 1129 



agency during the year and a definite program outlining stocking 

 requirements in the national forests throughout the country was 

 submitted to the bureau. The growin<r importance of irrigation 

 reservoirs and similar reclamation projects, both as fishing areas 

 and as field stations for the collection of eggs from wild fish, brings 

 the bureau in increasingly close contact with the Keclamation Serv- 

 ice. The new fish-cultural plant which has been under construction 

 during the past two years at Yellowstone Park will be ready for 

 operation shortly after the close of the fiscal year. The bureau 

 has appointed a district supervisor for the Kocky Mountain region 

 and the greater part of his duties will be to work with national forest 

 and national park officers in the improvement of fishing conditions 

 in those areas. 



COOPERATIVE FISH NURSERIES 



The cooperative fish-rearing program contemplates the unification 

 of the efforts of the bureau and private sportsmen's organizations in 

 the production of larger fish, and has now been developed to the point 

 where it is one of the routine activities of the division. It has 

 been amply demonstrated that sportsmen's groups can take small 

 fish from the Federal hatcheries and rear them to large fingerling 

 or legal size in nursery pools or ponds constructed, maintained, and 

 operated by themselves, with a reasonable degree of success. The 

 overcrowding of the bureau's facilities at the hatcheries is largely 

 overcome by this means, and the sportsmen are in position to deter- 

 mine by their own efforts the size to which fish are to be reared before 

 planting in their streams. 



At the outset the program was developed with the provision that 

 the bureau retain 50 per cent of the output of these nurseries for 

 meeting its own applications. While this provision is still retained 

 in the agreement with the sportmen's groups, in practically no case 

 has the bureau exercised its rights. The total of 125 nurseries in 

 operation this year represents only a limited increase over last year's 

 list. The assignment of fish, slightly in excess of 4,000,000, repre- 

 sents a decrease of almost 1,000,000 below the numbers furnished 

 during 1929. The decline is largely accounted for by the cessation 

 of trout work at the Harrisburg (Pa.) cooperative hatchery, which 

 utilized over 350,000 fish and eggs during the previous year, and a 

 reduction from 800,000 to 245,000 in the number of lake-trout fry 

 reared at the Rogers City nursery in Michigan. The bureau is also 

 exercising greater care in passing on the requests of the nursery 

 sponsors for increased assignments since in many cases the granting 

 of larger allotments would overstock the available facilities and 

 jeopardize the entire output. 



In view of the fact that the demands for fish nurseries are strain- 

 ing the bureau's resources, greater care is also exercised in scruti- 

 nizing the sites for new nurseries, thereby making the annual 

 increment considerably less than was the case during the first two or 

 three years of development. Fully as many nursery sites have been 

 rejected, due to' unsuitable conditions, as have been accepted during 

 the year. A glance at the following table shows that a majority of 

 the establishments are grouped in three States in which the work 

 23019—31 2 



