Forests and Fish 



585 



use. The importance of properly main- 

 taining our watersheds, of regulating 

 and correlating the uses to which they 

 are put, cannot be overemphasized. 



IN THESE DAYS when evaluations 

 are being made of all our natural re- 

 sources, it would be well to consider 

 the value of clean, productive waters 

 to the economy of the Nation. Corn, 

 wheat, automobiles, and percolators 

 can all be easily evaluated, but the 

 value of a fish in a creel is difficult to 

 determine. Various agencies, Federal 

 and State, and private individuals have 

 made an effort to appraise fishery re- 

 sources, but even today there is no 

 standard method in use. The problem 

 is extremely important in view of the 

 irrigation, power, and flood-control 

 programs being developed on prac- 

 tically all major stream systems in order 

 to measure the benefits or damages 

 that may result to wildlife resources 

 from the proposed improvements. 



The Oregon State Game Commis- 

 sion has used a figure of $5 a pound 

 for sport-caught trout the amount 

 that it costs a fisherman in gasoline, oil, 

 hotels, food, tackle, and other items to 

 catch a pound of trout. On that basis, 

 four popular fishing lakes in Oregon 

 Diamond, South Twin, East, and 

 Paulina in 1947 produced a total of 

 85,130 pounds of trout as determined 

 from creel-census work on them. At $5 

 a pound, the catch was worth $425,650 

 to the economy of the State. 



How much citizens of the State ben- 

 efited in health and fun from the rec- 

 reation and outdoor activity is a matter 

 of values that are hard to measure but 

 of great importance. If one could 

 attach a money value to the sport, say 

 $10 a pound for the trout, the four 

 lakes alone would have produced close 

 to a million dollars in a year. One can 

 apply his own arithmetic to the other 

 hundreds of lakes and thousands of 

 miles of streams in Oregon that are in- 

 tensively fished each year by some 

 265,000 persons. 



But the arithmetic cannot measure 

 the value fully. Nor should it. As every 



fisherman knows, "There is more to 

 fishing than fish." 



And, to summarize, good fishing is 

 more than water. Good fishing depends 

 on good land management. 



As Dr. Ira N. Gabrielson, Director 

 of the Wildlife Management Institute, 

 has said, "Soil and water are the two 

 most vital resources of this Nation and 

 their proper management is of vital 

 concern to every citizen. The retention 

 and best management of the fertile 

 soils and the greatest possible utiliza- 

 tion of the biological productive capac- 

 ity of the water is of increasing neces- 

 sity to the maintenance of national 

 health and prosperity." 



PAUL R. NEEDHAM received a 

 doctor's degree from Cornell Univer- 

 sity in 1928. He taught in the Univer- 

 sity of Rochester for 2 years and joined 

 the research staff of the Fish and Wild- 

 life Service in 1931. From 1932 to 

 1945 he was in charge of trout and 

 salmon work in California. In 1945 he 

 joined the Oregon State Game Com- 

 mission as director of fisheries. He re- 

 signed in late 1948 to accept a post as 

 fishery management biologist with the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service on the Co- 

 lumbia River program. He is now pro- 

 fessor of zoology at the University of 

 California. He is the author of the book 

 Trout Streams and other publications 

 dealing with fish culture, hatcheries, 

 stream and lake stocking, and manage' 

 ment problems. 



FRED W. JOHNSON did undergrad- 

 uate work in forest and range manage- 

 ment at Ohio State University and 

 graduate work at the University of 

 California. From 1928 to 1939, he was 

 ranger, range examiner, assistant forest 

 supervisor, and wildlife manager in 

 California national forests. From 1939 

 to 1944 he served as wildlife manager 

 on the national forests of the Southwest 

 and forest supervisor of the Kaibab 

 National Forest. In 1946 he trans- 

 ferred to the Forest Service regional 

 headquarters in Missoula, Mont., 

 where he is in charge of the section of 

 wildlife management. 



