12 DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME 



The 1957 Legislature authorized a full scale survey of fish and game programs and policies and 

 appropriated $100,000 for the job. A contract was awarded to the management analysis firm of 

 Booz, Allen and Hamilton and the survey was under way at the close of the biennium. 



MAJOR PROBLEMS 



Many other accompHshments of the agency are reported in detail throughout this publication. Of 

 course, there are always problems and the department has had its share of them. However, while 

 the problems loom large, the gains even in these fields have been significant. 



WATER PROJECTS 



Except that they have intensified, water problems m the last two years have not differed from those 

 of the previous two. A growing state needs water for its people, its agriculture and its industry. 

 These facts have resulted in continually increasing demands for diversion of water from California's 

 streams. The effects on fish and wildlife M'ould be devastating if the department failed in its re- 

 sponsibility to investigate each request and recommend measures to protect wildlife or mitigate 

 unavoidable losses. Such investigations have taken much time and manpower, but they are well worth 

 the effort. The department has noted a growing awareness of, and sympathy for, wildlife problems 

 among \\-ater project builders in the last two years. The department no longer sits around the negoti- 

 ating table as an unwelcome guest. 



POLLUTION 



The Dickey Act, which went into effect in 1949, is the governing law on pollution. It is ad- 

 ministered through one state and nine regional water pollution control boards. The state board is, 

 in practice, only a general advisory and fiscal body. It does not, except upon appeal, review actions 

 of the regional boards, nor does it have any clear-cut authority over them. 



Down through the years there has developed out of the Dickey Act a philosophy of "permissible 

 degradation." This is the philosophy which permits of maximum pollution of state waters short of 

 public indignation. The department has opposed this philosophy whenever it has found the oppor- 

 tunity to do so. 



Joining with four other state agencies — the Departments of Natural Resources, Public Health, 

 Agriculture, and A\'ater Resources — the Department of Fish and Game recommended a 15 -point 

 program of improvements in the Dickey Act to the Assembly Subcommittee on Bay and Water 

 Pollution. 



The gist of the recommendations is that prevention of pollution is by far the most expeditious and 

 least costly way of keeping our waters clean. 



The agencies have proposed that the Legislature declare that waste disposal in state waters is a 

 privilege, not a right, and that such disposal be so regulated as to achieve highest quality consistent 

 with maximum benefits to the people. The other 14 points detail the manner and means by which 

 these basic objectives may be accompHshed. 



SALMON 



Early in 1957, the department warned that fall king salmon spaM'ning stocks in the central valleys 

 had dropped in 1956 to 200,000 from an average of about 500,000 during the preceding four years. 

 It pointed out that if the annual spawning count did not increase sufficiently in 1957 the resource 

 would be in danger. 



In 1957 the combined commercial and sport salmon catch tumbled to 5.5 million pounds from 

 the highs of the two previous record years — 11.8 miUion in 1955 and 11.4 million in 1956. 



In 1958 the salmon spawner count dropped to 121,000. The department recommended a curtail- 

 ment of the salmon sport fishing season as the only immediate measure that could be taken to combat 



