36 FISHERIES OP ALASKA IN 1910. 



correct the figures. It is only necessary to begin such a system of 

 catching and releasing at proportions just to the industry and reason- 

 ably safe for the fisheries. It may be assumed for this purpose that 

 a 30 per cent escape will approximately maintain the Nushagak 

 fisheries. This implies a rate of increase of 233 per cent, which 

 means that for "three salmon which reach the spawning grounds, 

 spawn, and die, ten adult salmon return during the next few years, 

 and that if no more than seven of these are taken by the fishermen 

 the process can continue indefinitely. 



The Pacific salmon, and particularly the red salmon, alone among 

 commercial fishes, are surprisingly adapted to the control of man 

 for the purpose of perpetuation and exploitation as a commercial 

 asset. They leave th,e sea regularly at a certain season and make 

 their way en masse to the narrow channels of the fresh and more 

 or less clear waters, where they may be confined, held, captured, or 

 counted and released to the spawning grounds without injury — all 

 with comparative ease and convenience. Spawning is definitely 

 confined to the single season of sexual maturity and is soon followed 

 by the death of the adult, so that breeding salmon never themselves 

 become a part of subsequent runs. These facts make it possible 

 not only to measure their reproductive power, but to put into effect 

 a system of fishing whereby from a minimum reservation of breeding 

 salmon the fishery may be maintained perpetually at a maximum. 

 At the same time the industry may obtain its fish for packing easily 

 and cheaply. The pack may be made in a perfectly fresh condition. 

 The canneries can operate uniformly throughout the season, instead 

 of with the present alternations of scarcity and abundance. Runs 

 of more uniform size would finally succeed upon a more uniform 

 release of breeders, and would therefore be more accurately 

 predictable. 



There is a certain quantity of seed represented by spawning 

 salmon, a more or less definite fraction of the whole run, varying 

 within presumably narrow limits, which nicely produces without 

 waste from the spawning fields and the feeding grounds of the seas 

 a maximum crop of fish. Any greater quantity is an excess, being 

 a total waste of nonproductive seed, while any lesser quantity is a 

 more serious loss, the waste of a multiplied return from potential 

 seed which should have been used as such. No system of fishing 

 can possibly make this measured sowing of the spawning grounds 

 without actually counting the whole run. This the present system 

 does not do. It counts the catch alone, and therefore it almost 

 always wastes fish, either as nonproductive breeders or as the 

 multiplied (by about 2J) return from fish which should have been 

 allowed to breed. The tendency is toward the latter or greater 

 loss. Only occasionally and by chance will both forms of waste be 

 avoided. 



