REPORT OP THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 139 



Game Refuges and Preserves. 

 The recently added area of a portion of the Trinity National Forest 

 in Trinity County to the game refuges of our state is giving needed 

 protection to many quail, grouse and other game birds and animals. 

 Refuges are in reality natural game farms and are much better adapted 

 to the propagation of game than all the artificial game farms taken 

 together, for the reason that game artificially propagated and hand-fed 

 is prone to become too confiding and when liberated falls an easy prey 

 to both man and predatory animals. An ideal refuge for waterfowl 

 could be established in central California, in Butte, Colusa, Sutter or 

 Yuba counties. Such a refuge would pay 1000 per cent on the invest- 

 ment and insure the perpetuation of California's supply of ducks and 

 geese and probably also the supply of many neighboring states. Unless 

 something of this nature is done, and done soon, there will be an end 

 to the once wonderful flight of geese and ducks through central Cali- 

 fornia, for the increase of reclamation of swamp lands is destroying 

 their breeding grounds. Very large percentages of several species of 

 ducks nest and rear their young in the counties above named, because 

 conditions of feed, water and safety make it to their liking. The 

 banding together of a large number of northern California sportsmen 

 to hold from reclamation 16,209 acres of land in Sutter, Butte and 

 Colusa counties, is therefore to be commended. The withholding of 

 these swamp lands also means much to the fishing industry, as the duck 

 grounds adjacent to the Sacramento and Feather rivers are huge 

 natural hatcheries for black and striped bass, catfish, and perch. The 

 reclamation of these lands would mean to the ducks and shore birds 

 what the reclamation of such lands has meant to the fish. The steady 

 decline in the supply of many of our choicest food fishes can be laid 

 to the reclamation of the huge inland region. 



Fish Planting From Overflowed Areas. 



As neither catfish, perch, black bass, crappie nor any of the sunfishes 

 are propagated in our state hatchery at present, much of the replanting 

 of these fish has been and must be made by saving them from overflowed 

 areas in these districts. 



In 1904 and 1905 the writer, assisted by the commission and the late 

 Deputy Cross, stocked 318 streams and lakes with 1483 cans, or approxi- 

 mately 14,830 adult black bass, besides numerous other food fishes, with 

 fish saved from overflowed areas in Sacramento, Yolo and Sutter 

 counties. The majority of these fish were planted south of San Fran- 

 cisco. Further work of this character will be necessary this coming fall 

 and winter (1916), owing to the high stage of water last season, which 

 distributed these fish into the lowlands which later dry up. 



