THE DECREASE OF THE COARSE FISH AND 

 SOME OF ITS CAUSES 



By S. P. Bartlett 



It may be that this subject might be considered a prob- 

 lematical one, to some extent, and my apprehensions for the 

 near future may be deemed premature, but to me it seems a 

 matter of grave importance and worthy of serious consid- 

 eration, that after years of work to bring about an increase 

 in the supply of food fishes, particularly the coarser varie- 

 ties, circumstances have brought about conditions which 

 have not only materially reduced the output but which must 

 of necessity curtail it. The rapid decrease in the supply of 

 carp and buffalo has been most marked. Increasing for 

 years, the output reached its highest point in 1905 and 1906, 

 then the gradual decrease for a while was followed by the 

 more rapid decline during the last two years in both the 

 Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and their tributaries, until now 

 it seems to me that the situation presents some very un- 

 pleasant probabilities unless measures are taken to offset it. 



The application of protective laws, faulty at best as 

 they have been, acted as a partial restraint to the wholesale 

 destruction of these fish by the market fishermen. The 

 great danger to the output does not lie here, however, but in 

 the natural result of the rapidly increasing reclamation of 

 what were once waste bottom lands, overflowed by the 

 rivers in their annual floods and formerly the homes and 

 feeding grounds of the buffalo and carp. 



The Illinois River particularly presents conditions that 

 exist in but few states, in that it lies for almost its entire 

 length, about 250 miles, between wide, flat bottoms, which 

 were once covered by an almost continuous chain of lakes 

 and ponds. These bottom lands when drained by levee sys- 

 tems have developed into the best farming lands, and this 

 work has been carried on so generally and so rapidly that 

 now but a small portion remains unclaimed. This leaves 



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