TniRTY-FOURTH BIENNIAL REPORT 



47 



seems assured that the growing of native oysters is to be made a com- 

 mercial success in Humboldt Bay, 



SALMON 



California's salmon fishery, the oldest and once the most important 

 fishery in the state, continues to decline and it is inevitable that our 

 two species of salmon, the king and silver, will become commercially 

 extinct in California unless more protection is given them. The run 

 of king salmon which ascends the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers 

 to spawn has been fished harder and over a greater period of years than 

 any of the other runs in the State and it is this run which is in the most 

 serious stages of depletion. This run of salmon has been reduced to a 

 mere vestige of what it was even 20 years ago. The salmon of this run 

 are, most of them, being caught by commercial trollers in the open 

 ocean from Point Reyes to Monterey before they enter San Francisco 

 Bay on their way up the rivers to spawn. River fishermen also take 

 their toll but their seasons have been cut down until they catch only a 

 small number as compared with the outside trollers. Facts relating 

 to the depletion of this once great salmon run as well as what should 

 be done about it are well known. 



SALMON 



.S^ 



5 ^ 

 I 





Fig. 7. Sacramento River salmon catch contrasted with the ocean troll catch landed 

 at Monterey Bay points, at San Francisco and at points in Marin County, from 

 the year 1916 to the year 1935. 



We have for many years been pointing out the seriousness of the 

 situation and measures to restrict the intensity of the fishing have been 

 presented to the legislature by the fish and game commissioners, but 

 the measures enacted into law have always been inadequate compro- 

 mises. Closed seasons, especially for the outside trolling, have not been 

 long enough and such closed seasons as we were able to get have subse- 

 quently been shortened. The river fishermen realize that the salmon 

 are depleted, and have voluntarily agreed to greatly shortened seasons 

 which they have not attempted to get extended. The ocean trollers, 

 on the other hand, would sacrifice the salmon for a few years of quick 

 profit. 



The depletion of the Sacramento salmon is so obvious that it does 

 not require a complicated statistical analysis to prove it. No one who 

 examines the facts and is interested in conserving our fishery resources 



