CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES CAN RE- 

 STORE THE GREAT ERASER RIVER FISHERY 



By John Pease Babcock 



Provincial Fisheries Department 

 Victoria, British Columbia 



Notwithstanding that the salmon fisheries of the Fraser 

 River system have elsewhere been ably and adequately dealt 

 with by the fishery authorities of Canada and the United 

 States, it is so desirable that the transactions of the American 

 Fisheries Society should contain a digest of the facts in this 

 great international case that this paper is submitted. 



The sockeye salmon fishery of the Fraser River system 

 was formerly the world's greatest salmon fishery. The run 

 of salmon in those waters was greater every fourth year than 

 in any other waters. This fishery is no longer great. A dis- 

 criminating study of the significant facts in the development 

 and decline of this fishery demonstrates the necessity of deal- 

 ing with them at once in an international way. These facts 

 have been fully established, are no longer questioned, and 

 should be more generally understood. The restoration of the 

 sockeye salmon fishery of the Fraser River system is the 

 greatest, and at the same time the least expensive, reclama- 

 tion project in which Canada and the United States can 

 jointly engage, and if adequate measures are adopted its suc- 

 cess is certain. 



The prominent facts in the history of the sockeye fishery 

 may be stated as follows: 



The waters of the Fraser River system as defined in the 

 proposed treaty between Great Britain and the United States 

 include all the fishing waters in the Province of British Colum- 

 bia and in the State of Washington which are frequented by 

 sockeye salmon in their migration from the Pacific Ocean to 

 the spawning beds of the Fraser River basin. They include 



