86 REPORT OP THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



The past two years has shown a marked increase in the number of 

 convictions had where jury trials were demanded by defendants, par- 

 ticularly in the few counties where formerly a conviction could scarcely, 

 if ever, be had against a game violator. 



In these sparsely settled counties the residents felt the game belonged 

 to them and they could kill it at all seasons of the year, but the work 

 of the Commission along educational lines and the vigorous prosecution 

 of violators has been the means of teaching the people the value of the 

 game as a natural resource, as well as that all violators will be vigor- 

 ously prosecuted irrespective of the result of a trial ; as a consequence 

 there is scarcely a county in which a conviction cannot be had by jury 

 where the evidence warrants. 



Much work has been done in the enforcement of the screen and ladder 

 law, and many of these devices have been installed. Surveys are being 

 made and hearings held where demanded. But the greatest difficulty is 

 in compelling ditch owners to maintain the screens after they are once 

 installed, for in many instances the ditch owners take the screens out to 

 clean the ditches and fail to return them until prosecution is threatened 

 or begun. 



The appropriation of the river waters of the State of California for 

 irrigation and power purposes and the erection of large dams for im- 

 pounding purposes has become a serious menace to the run of fish 

 unless laws are enacted or means can be adopted whereby the corpora- 

 tions taking the water from these rivers can be compelled to permit 

 sufficient water to pass down the natural channel of the rivers, in 

 question, at all times sufficient to sustain fish life, the run of fish will be 

 ultimately exterminated and that shortly. 



The Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District has constructed a dam 

 on the Sacramento River above Redding that prevents the free passage 

 of fish and is interfering with the salmon run. A notice was served on 

 the district to construct a fishway on the dam, but so far the order has 

 been ignored and proceedings are about to be begun to compel the dis- 

 trict to install the fishway. The District Attorney of Shasta County 

 has been requested by this Commission and the United States Bureau 

 of Fisheries to begin an action against the district to compel an installa- 

 tion of the fishway, for under the law as it now stands the District At- 

 torney is the officer whose duty it is to bring an action to abate this 

 nuisance and prevent the destruction of one of the most valuable run of 

 salmon in California. 



A ease was prosecuted against the Red River Lumber Company at 

 Westwood, Lassen County, for the pollution by sawdust of Robbers 

 Creek, a tributary of the Feather River, and a conviction had in the 

 Superior Court of Lassen County. The creek ran through the mill 



