20 REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



a small number of eggs were taken. Last fall a fine take of eggs 

 was procured and the number received would have been much greater 

 had it not been for the drought, which extended all over the state 

 and materiall}' interfered with tlie extent of our egg collecting 

 operations. A portion of the salmon eggs taken at Klamathon Hatchery 

 are hatched and the fry reared at the new Fall Creek Hatchery. Here 

 a large number of the fry nw lield in ponds during the summer and 

 released in the Klamath river as fingerlings during the fall months. 



A tofal of approximately 29,000,000 Chinook salmon were reared and 

 distributed in the Sacramento, Eel and Klamath rivers during 1918- 

 1919. 



We desire to call particular attention to the salmon run in the Sacra- 

 mento river. It is threatened with extermination if measures are not 

 taken in the immediate future to increase the pond rearing system on 

 the Sacramento River. Fully 80 per cent of the natural spawning 

 grounds of the Sacramento River basin have been destroyed by the 

 mines, and dams constructed for the purpose of generating electricity, 

 and by the diverting of water for irrigation purposes. 



The salmon rearing ponds at the Blount Shasta Hatchery will soon be 

 inadecjuate to keep up the supply, and if the Iron Canyon Project is 

 completed, according to the plan of the promoters, all of the salmon fry 

 will have to be hatched and reared below Red Bluff. 



The run has been broken at Redding by the construction of the dam 

 diverting the water into the canal of the Anderson-Cottonwood Irriga- 

 tion District. At the time the dam was built during 1916-1917, we 

 liad an understanding with the engineer in charge of the District, 

 that the dam was not to be raised above a certain level. This would 

 allow all the salmon to pass the dam and proceed on their way up the 

 McCloud and Pit rivers. This would allow natural propagation in the 

 Pit River and the Bureau of Fisheries could collect the eggs from the 

 salmon that entered the McCloud River at Baird Hatchery and hatch 

 and rear them as in former years. 



In spite of tlie heavy drain on the fish in Monterey Bay and else- 

 where in the ocean and in the Sacramento River, the salmon culture 

 operations, as carried on by the Bureau of Fisheries and the State Fish 

 and Game Commission, kept the run of salmon up without an appreci- 

 able decrease until the last two or three years. But recently the large 

 number of salmon taken in Monterey Bay, the fishing areas off the coast 

 of Fort Bragg, and the fishing in the lower river, combined with the 

 number speared during the so called closed season on the upper reaches 

 of the river, have made a material reduction in the number of adult 

 salmon and effective measures must be taken without delay to save the 

 salmon that are the output of the Sacramento River system. The low 

 water in the river caused by the diversion of the water to the rice fields, 



