ALASKA FISHERIES AITD FUE INDUSTRIES, 1911. 75 



tained in the dipper. The baskets, which are deeper than at the otlier 

 stations, receive from 20 to 25 dippers of eggs each. Instead of being 

 removed by salt the dead eggs are picked out by hand, about 15 men 

 being engaged for tliis purpose at one period during the past season. 

 The spawning crew is usually made up of 8 men. It is often diffi- 

 cult to get enough good help; the natives are not dependable. 



Adjoining the hatchery is a nursery pond about three-fourths of 

 an acre in area and 4 feet deep, supplied by waste water from the 

 hatchery and surplus fresh water from the filtration plant. Prac- 

 tically as soon as the fry hatch they are transferred in buckets to 

 this pond. Also after hatching is over as many fry as possible are 

 held m the troughs until they swim up freely. At the rate of 

 125,000 to a trough about 7,000,000 fry can be thus held. Last 

 winter over 15,000,000 fry were put in the nursery pond at one time. 

 Ordinarily not more than 5,000,000 get in at a time, for owing to 

 the protracted season the older fry pass out of the pond into the 

 lagoon before the later ones hatch. The fry are spread about the 

 nursery pond as much as possible. They are sometimes fed on 

 canned salmon and a mush made of corn meal. The loss in the pond 

 appears to be very light. 



The overflow screens to the pond are usually removed in February, 

 and the young salmon as they swim up work out into the lagoon, 

 which usually remains frozen over from November until IMay. After 

 the ice breaks up the fry are caught in a live car as they pass out of 

 the pond. This live car is an old skill' with wire mesh-covered ports 

 in the sides and is towed to grounds near the hatchery, where there is 

 a good growth of eelgrass. The ports are then opened and, the fry 

 swim out at their leisure. Trout and sculpins no doubt devour quite 

 a number of the young salmon. Last season large numbers of trout 

 were seined near the pond outlet. 



There is a tremendous mortahty of fish held in the corrals and 

 ponds, due no doubt to crowdmg so many fish together in a limited 

 space, and the loss is particularly heavy during the latter half of July 

 when the water warms up. The season of 1910, the last for which 

 complete statistics are available, is typical of conditions at Karluk. 

 From June 7 to August 10, 1910, a total of 85,623 adult salmon were 

 impounded. Of these fish a total of 42,174, or nearly 50 per cent, 

 died and were of no use whatsoever. The season's take was 49,626,000 

 eggs from the remaining salmon, and it is safe to assume, therefore, 

 that a like number, or nearly 50,000,000, were absolutely wasted as a 

 result of the death of fish in the inclosures. It is unfortunate that 

 these fish did not have a chance to reach the natural spawning 

 grounds. Of 200 females selected at random September 12 at Kar- 

 luk Lake it was found that 197 had spawned clean, 1 contained about 



