CALIFOKNIA FISH AND GAME, 55 



THE EFFECT OF POWER DEVELOPMENT ON FISHING 

 CONDITIONS IN THE HIGH SIERRAS. 



By A. D. FERGUSON, Field Agent, California Fish and Game Commission. 



The construction of great dams across natural streams for the pur- 

 pose of diverting or storing its waters, gives rise to difficult and trying 

 problems in the way of providing for the free movement of ascending 

 migratory fish over or around such artificial obstructions. To devise 

 a fishway which will enable fish to surmount a dam a hundred or more 

 feet high is no mean engineering feat. Such problems the Fish and 

 Game Commission must solve. It can, and does, happen, frequently, 

 that the construction of a great impounding dam works a very decided 

 improvement in fishing conditions. The major streams of the 

 high Sierra Nevada mountains of central California occupy deep can- 

 yons and their tributary waters tumble more or less directly over 

 canyon walls. The minor or tributary streams of the high Sierra 

 region were, because of impassable falls in their lower courses, natu- 

 rally devoid of fish life. Most of the feeder waters of the river systems 

 of the vast Sierra watershed have been stocked with trout through the 

 agency of man's enterprise, but while there are fish in the main 

 streams and tributaries, the chief movement of fish life as between main 

 streams and feeders is downward and not upward. 



The impounding dams now in the Sierra Nevada mountains have 

 been constructed either in connection with hydroelectric power devel- 

 opment or as an aid to economical lumbering and are located on 

 tributary streams high above the main rivers. In the first instance the 

 site was chosen for the double purpose of securing a large area for 

 the impounded flood waters and of securing a great perpendicular fall 

 for the piped water in a short lateral distance. In the second instance, 

 the lumberman makes his reservoir nearest his standing timber. And 

 thus it comes about that some people seeing a high dam across a stream 

 where fish are found above and below such dam wonder (and some- 

 times complain) that the Fish and Game Commission has not compelled 

 the construction of a fishway to enable ascending migratory fish to 

 pass over the obstruction. The unusual conditions existing in such, 

 cases minimize the necessity of aiding the fish to ascend the stream. 

 Furthermore, the artificial lake above the dam has made room for thou- 

 sands of fish where dozens could have existed before the construction 



Fig. 19. Transportation by means of pack-tram m the hit;h Sierra-, By using this means 

 of transportation it is possible to plant many streams otherwise inaccessible. Photograph 

 by A. D. Ferguson. 



