floods, and in order to provide another acre of ground on which 

 alfalfa may be raised or to consolidate a block of ground. 



Ranchers often allow cattle and other livestock to have access 

 to every inch of a stream, thereby denuding it of valuable cover and 

 trampling down undercut banks. State and Federal agencies together 

 with private corporations construct dams and impound waters that 

 flood out hundreds of miles of spawning areas, destroy valuable trout 

 stream fisheries, and in their places, provide artificial impoundments 

 that are difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to manage as 

 fisheries. 



Irrigation waters are drawn from streams, leaving countless 

 miles completely dry, and reducing the water flow in other hundreds 

 of miles of streams thereby reducing the fish populations they 

 contain. 



These are the results of an increasing human population involving 

 new and additional water uses. These have had drastic effects upon 

 the fisheries resources and can in no way be related to fishing 

 pressure as the cause of a declining fisheries resource. It is evident 

 that the human population will continue to increase and that econ- 

 omic developments will be made at even a more accelerated rate 

 than in the past. 



Because this is evident and true, a general rule should not be 

 pushed aside: A fishery can be no better than the aquatic habitat. 









POOR STREAM HABITAT 



t^^/^ 



, Straightened to accommodate the highway at right. 

 — 63 — 



