THIRTY-NINTH BIENNIAL REPORT 



27 



By the close of the biennium, the staff had expanded sufficiently to 

 allow resumption of a more elaborate mackerel program. An analysis of 

 results of the tagging experiments was in progress, as was work on a 

 racial study which had been underway before the war interrupted the 

 program. 



A total of 101 tags from fish released in Monterey Bay, at various 

 points off the Southern California coast and in Mexican waters off Lower 

 California was recovered at Central and Southern California canneries 

 during the 1944-45 fishing season. Of these, 91 were found in Southern 

 California, the remaining ten at San Francisco and Monterey. There 

 were 38 returns in Southern California during 1945-46, representing 

 releases in the same three areas. One tag from a fish released off Southern 

 California was recovered in Central California. 



SALMON 



The salmon fishery, the oldest commercial fishery in California, 

 underwent a marked expansion during the last two years. In spite of 

 unparalleled persecution for nearly a hundred years in the form of 

 destruction of spawning beds by the construction of dams and by mining 

 operations, in losses of young fish into irrigation diversions, and intensive 

 commercial and sport fishing, the salmon is still the most important fishery 

 in Northern California. Further dangers to the salmon lie ahead as a 

 reckless program of dam construction has been formulated in the name 

 of power development, flood control, and irrigation. Only continued and 



Figure 7. Commercial landings of salmon in California, 1936-1945. River catches, 

 made in the lower reaches of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River, consist of king salmon 

 exclusively. The ocean fishery, conducted from the Oregon line south to Monterey Bay, 

 takes king salmon principally but an appreciable proportion of silver salmon is included 

 in the catch. 



