REPORT 



OF THE 



COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



Department of Commerce and Labor, 



Bureau of Fisheries, 

 Washington, August &£, 1910. 

 Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith a report of the opera- 

 tions of the Bureau of Fisheries for the fiscal year ended June 30, 

 1910. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



This Bureau was organized as the United States Fish Commission 

 in February, 1871, and on June 30, 1910, therefore, it completed the 

 fortieth fiscal year of its existence. Originally clothed solely with 

 functions of investigation and inquiry into the reputed or real de- 

 crease in the food fishes of the coastal and interior waters, it soon 

 manifested that it could perform important service in actually increas- 

 ing the supply of such fishes. In recognition of this fact acts of Con- 

 gress from time to time have enlarged the functions of the Bureau 

 until to-day the purely practical work of increasing and conserving 

 aquatic food resources through cultural and experimental operations 

 has become the dominant feature of the Bureau's activities. 



For a long while wholly relieved of executive control of the 

 fisheries by reason of the constitutional reservation of that right to 

 the States, the Bureau recently has been invested with the adminis- 

 tration of the important fisheries of Alaska, including the entire 

 control of the Pribilof Islands and the fur-bearing animals of the 

 Territory at large. 



The steady increase in* the volume and importance of the Bureau's 

 work has been especially rapid in the past ten years, and the fiscal 

 year just closed, which witnessed a drastic change in the control of 

 the seal herd, has added considerably to the sum of the Bureau's 

 duties. The probable adoption of joint international regulations 

 in respect to the fisheries of the waters contiguous to our northern 

 boundary presents the possibility of a great enlargement of the 



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