248 American Fisheries Society 



•death by smothering is inevitable even though the pool does 

 not freeze to the bottom. 



The need of some sort of salvage work has long been rec- 

 ognized, and the first attempts to save a few of the stranded 

 fishes were made in the late nineties. It is only in very recent 

 years, however, that the work may be considered as approach- 

 ing a point commensurate with the need. 



During the fiscal year 1920 the number of fish rescued by 

 the Bureau of Fisheries was 156,657,000. All of the im- 

 portant food fishes are represented in the collections, but the 

 staple fishes, which contribute largely to the food supply and 

 support the commercial fishery, largely predominate. 



The territory covered by the rescue operations during 1919 

 extended from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Arkansas and Mis- 

 sissippi, though the so-called upper river districts, with head- 

 quarters at Homer, Minn., and substations at La Crosse, Wis,, 

 and North MacGregor and Bellevue, Iowa, were by far the 

 most prolific fields. 



Of interest in connection with this work is the very moder- 

 ate cost of operations. A few years ago when the work was 

 first undertaken and when comparatively small numbers of 

 fish were secured, the cost per thousand was about $3.18. 

 During 1919 the average cost per thousand was less than 20 

 cents, while between 75 and 80 per cent of the total number 

 were rescued at a cost of only 13 cents per thousand fish. 

 To further show the moderate cost of rescue operations, it 

 may be interesting to compare the work with that of a sta- 

 tion devoted to the artificial propagation of the warm-water 

 species similar to those rescued. Such a station may produce 

 from 250,000 to 1,000,000 fingerling fish 2 to 3 inches long 

 in a season. The cost varies from $4.50 to $5.50 per thousand 

 fish. From these figures it appears that it would have re- 

 quired at least 345 established plants to produce the numbers 

 of fish rescued during 1919, and that the actual cost of pro- 

 duction would have been in excess of $800,000. These figures 

 do not include the cost of the regular station employees, nor 



