36 FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



River. Salmon can not pass through any fishway over extremely high 

 dams, some 250 feet in height, in numbers sufficient to maintain the 

 run. In fact the only means of passing the fish would be a mechanical 

 contrivance which would be impracticable and in a few years, the run 

 would be exterminated. If a run of spawning fish were passed over the 

 dams there remains the danger that the fry resulting from the eggs 

 deposited in natural spawning beds or reared at the hatcheries could 

 not bo screened out of the intakes to the impulse wheels of the large 

 power plants. The use of electric fish stops was advocated for this 

 purpose. 



We had carried on experiments with electric fish stops and had 

 found that various models were failures, as the tingling sensation 

 caused by the low voltage only caused the fish to accelerate their speed 

 and pass more rapidly down the canals where the experiments were 

 tried. Where a high voltage was used, it killed the fish. These experi- 

 ments were carried out by practical tests where control of the entire 

 experiments was under the supervision of men interested in perfecting 

 screens to save fish from destruction in large canals as well as by the 

 persons who held interests in the patent. 



Protests were made to the Division of Water Rights and the Federal 

 Power Commission against the granting of the rights to construct these 

 (lams, but our efforts were unsuccessful. As a last resort the Fish and 

 Oame Commission appealed to the people to support an initiative meas- 

 ure instituted by the Commission and sportsmen and by all those 

 interested in saving the Klamath River run of salmon from extermi- 

 nation. The result was that the measure was carried by a majority of 

 nearly 200,000 votes, thus saving the Klamath River as a fish reserve to 

 the people. The eggs from the great run of trout and salmon may now 

 be used to stock the Sacramento River and tributaries, Monterey Bay 

 region and ocean areas off the shore from Fort Bragg as well as to 

 furnish millions of trout eggs to supply other streams and lakes in this 

 state with the wonderful trout from the Klamath region. This measure 

 has secured for the people, a valuable asset to our natural resorces 

 without any damage to the industrial development of the state, as there 

 is hydro-electric power enough developed or in the process of being 

 developed, to furnish electric power for all the needs of the state for 

 many years to come. Other streams remain not so valuable to the fish 

 life and these should, be utilized before destroying natural resources 

 difficult to replace. 



TROUT AND SALMON DISTRIBUTION. 



The following species of trout have been distributed from the hatch- 

 eries during the biennial period covered by this report. 



Rainbow 26,771,373 Larse Lake 2,540,820 



Loch Leven 11,236,504 Cut-throat 400,000 



Steelhead 5,926,900 Black-spotted l,322,20o 



Eastern Brook 6,799,808 (iolden 838,000 



Jklackioaw 75,000 Salmon 14,157,150 



German Brown 3,614,000 



The excessive fishing, both in our river systems and ocean areas, has 

 greatly reduced the number of valual)le food fish that formerly entered 

 our rivers in teeming hordes. The unusually dry fall seasons that have 



