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The Fraser River Salmon Situation : 

 A Reclamation Project. 



BY JOHN PEASE BABCOCK. 



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 a great fishery. A discrimi- 

 nating study of the significant facts in the development and decline 

 of this fishery demonstrates the necessity of dealing 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, 

 reclamation project in which Canada and the United States can jointly 

 engage, and if adequate measures are adopted its success is certain. 



It is the purpose of this paper to briefly set forth what the sockeye- 

 salmon fishery of the Fraser River system was, what it is to-day, and 

 what it may again become by judicious conservation. 



The prominent facts in the history of the sockeye fishery may be 

 stated as follows : 



(i.) The waters of the Fraser River system as defined in the treaty 

 between Great Britain and the United States include all the fishing- 

 waters in the Province of British Columbia and in the State of 

 Washington which are frequented by sockeye salmon in their migra- 

 tion from the Pacific Ocean to the spawning-beds of the Fraser River 

 basin. They include Juan de Fuca, Rosario, and Haro Straits, and 

 the other American estuary waters leading into the Gulf of Georgia, 

 and the waters of that gulf as well as the channels of the Fraser 

 River up to Mission Bridge, in British Columbia. 



(2.) Fishing for sockeye began commercially in the channels of 

 the Fraser in British Columbia in 1876. It was extended to the 

 waters of the Gulf of Georgia immediately outside the mouths of the 

 river in 1890. Fishing for sockeye began in the State of Washington 

 waters in 1891, with the installation of traps in the vicinity of Point 

 Roberts. Traps became an important factor in 1897. Purse-nets 

 came into use in American waters in 1901 and in recent years have 

 greatly increased in number. During the period of 1900 to 1918, when 



