fWENTY-EIGIITII BtENNIAL REPORT. 



29 



not lill so as to spill ovci- and, consequently, no fish reached the egg- 

 collecting station tliis year, thus depriving us of several millions of 

 steelliead eggs. A lease was obtained on Gravelly Valley dam from the 

 Snow JMonntain Water and Power Company, the owners of this> project, 

 with the intention, if conditions proved suitable, of having this lake 

 set aside as a preserve from which a large number of rainbow might 

 be raised for the purpose of collecting their eggs to stock the streams 

 of the immediate vicinity as well as have a supply to be shipped out to 

 other stations. But protests from the citizens of Lake County, and 

 the refusal of the Forestry Service to grant the Commission a lease on 

 the lands bordering on Lake Pillsbury or Gravelly Valley dam, have 

 prevented this department from carrying out its plans. The citizens 

 of Lake County protested on the grouilds that the dam was of greater 

 benefit to them as a fishing resort to the public than for an egg-collect- 

 ing preserve for the Fish and Game Connnission. As they are drawing 

 off the water each season for power purposes and the water in this 

 lake fluctuates to such a great extent, it is somewhat doubtful whether 

 the lake would furnish anywhere near the number of eggs that we 

 formerly collected in the river immediately below the dam before its 

 construction; that is, the Snow :\rountain egg-collecting station located 

 at the lower dam owned by this company. 



If these protests against our experimenting on this lake are removed, 

 several years will have to elapse before it can be determined how many 

 eggs the brood fisli in this lake would produce. The number of eggs 

 that may be collected from fish raised in dams that have fluctuating 

 heads, is always uncertain; and it becomes more apparent, as we look 

 over the great State of California for suitable places where spawn- 

 fish may be obtained, that the Klamath River, the last stream in Cali- 

 fornia that has not been seriously affected by the construction of high 

 dams, should be left to furnish a sufficient number of eggs of rainbow 

 and steelhead to supply the needs of the state in other waters, as well 

 as to provide king salmon eggs to maintain a greater portion of the run 

 in the Sacramento River and Monterey Bay regions; and that adequate 

 pond systems should be constructed for the rearing of our introduced 

 species of fish, such as Loch Leven, European brown trout and Eastern 

 brook trout. 



As the fight to prevent the construction of high dams in the Klamath 

 River by the residents of Siskiyou County, sportsmen's organizations 

 and our Commission, has not yet been decided, since the matter is 

 pending before the Federal Power Commission and in the courts of the 

 state, as w^ell as being submitted by an initiative petition to the voters 

 of the state so that they may express their opinion, we can not add 

 anything more to the argument submitted in our last biennial report, 

 but will publish excerpts from the same report so that the matter may 

 be brought before the minds of the people of the value of the Klamath 

 River as a fish refuge. 



We reiterate that the great Klamath River should be kept free from 

 dams so that a stock of trout and salmon can be depended upon from 

 that source for many years to come. The Klamath River runs through 

 a mountainous region from the Oregon line, w'here it enters California, 

 to its mouth on the boundary line of Del Norte County and Humboldt 



County, where it flows into the ocean. 



