70 



FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



Funds Insufficient for Salmon Conservation Work. "With the grow- 

 ing scarcity of salmon the Fish and Game Commission's salmon con- 

 servation work has had to be increased. This has necessarily been 

 accompanied by an increased expenditure of money along this line. 

 There is a necessity for increasing the salmon hatchery work as well as 

 a necessity for increasing the salmon investigation and patrol work. 

 The state spends annually more than $25,000 in hatching salmon and 

 the United States is spending a like amount in this state for the same 

 purpose. The Commission desires to increase this work. Added to 

 the hatchery work there is the expense of the salmon patrol and investi- 

 gation work which amounts to more than twenty thousand dollars each 

 year. The Fish and Game Commission receives no appropriation for 

 this work but must finance it out of the revenue from commercial fish- 

 ing licenses and the very small amount received from the tax on salmon 

 which are canned or salted. The entire amount received from all com- 

 mercial licenses sold in northern California together with the tax on 

 salmon for canning and salting is not nearly sufficient to pay even the 

 state 's portion of the expense of salmon hatching, to say nothing of the 

 patrol and investigation work which are equally necessarj^ The bulk 

 of the salmon which are caught are used in the fresh markets and the 

 fish which are used in the fresh markets are not taxed for conservation 

 Avork. It will be necessary in the fight to save the salmon to increase the 

 revenue for conservation work in the districts where the salmon work 

 is being done. Fish used in the fresh markets should be taxed to fur- 

 nish a revenue sufficient to carry on this very necessary work. 



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Fig. 22. The Redding Dam, which for .several years acted as a barrier to migrating 

 salmon. Better conditions now exist at the dam and some salmon succeed in 

 passing. Photograph by E. A. McGregor. 



