SALMON FISHERIES OF PACIFIC COAST. 39 



The provision in the Alaska fisheries law regulating the manner 

 of closing traps during the weekly closed season is without question 

 the best in the country, and Washington could adopt it with much 

 profit. It requires that " the gate, mouth, or tunnel of all stationary 

 or floating traps shall be closed, and 25 feet of the webbing or net of 

 the 'heart' of such traps on each side next to the 'pot' shall be 

 lifted or lowered in such manner as to permit the free passage of sal- 

 mon and other fishes.'' With two men stationed on the trap at least 

 15 or 20 minutes of most strenuous work is required to open or close 

 the trap in this manner, and the fishery agent has ample time to reach 

 the scene before the operation is completed. This fact has been found 

 to be an excellent deterrent. 



At first the owners advanced the plea that the lowering of 25 feet 

 of the web of the heart next to the pot w T ould so weaken the trap 

 that it might be carried away by the very strong and high tides 

 which prevail in Alaska, but three years' actual trial has proved this 

 fear to be groundless, and now no objections are heard to this feature 

 of the law. 



, Although not used to as great an extent, wheels have probably 

 occasioned more controversy than traps. While the traps are 

 usually set in either bays, straits, and sounds, where the water is salt 

 or brackish, or in the lower reaches of all the rivers, the wdieels are 

 set in the upper courses of the Columbia River only. After the fish 

 have run the gauntlet of the almost countless gill nets, seines, and 

 trap nets in the lower and middle river, and are approaching their 

 spawning beds, they meet with the runways leading to the wheels, 

 which in some instances are set in natural channels in the cascades 

 or falls, or in artificial channels through which the greater part of 

 the run must of necessity pass. Nearly all of the salmon hatcheries 

 on the Columbia are located either on the main river below Cascade 

 Locks, or on one of the tributaries entering the river below there, 

 while above this point there were operated in 1909 17 stationary 

 wheels and 5 scow wheels. 



Tt may be maintained that a salmon which has successfully evaded 

 the nets in the section of the river below Cascade Locks is of vastly 

 more importance to the preservation and perpetuation of the fish- 

 eries than a number which have not yet crossed the bar at the mouth 

 of the river. Thus, it has been argued, while wheels have not done 

 anything like the damage to the fisheries ascribed to them, a regard 

 for the perpetuation of the fisheries of the Columbia River demands 

 that their use, as well as that of all other forms of apparatus for the 

 taking of fish commercially, should be prohibited above Cascade 

 Locks. 



This brings up the question of the justice of such an arrangement 

 from the standpoint of the owners of the wheels. When they put 



