ADJUSTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT vs. STOCKING— TO 

 INCREASE THE PRODUCTIVITY OF FISH LIFE. 



By Ernest Clive Brown 

 Consulting Fishculturist, New York, N. Y. 



The title for this article has been selected with a view to set- 

 ting forth what I believe will be the underlying principles of the 

 fish culture of the future, and though the topic as stated would 

 seem to present an antithesis, it does not do so in fact, since each 

 line of action supplements the other in endeavoring to attain max- 

 imum productivity of fish life. 



While fish culture in artificial ponds was known to ancient 

 China and to Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs, and in later 

 times stood in high favor among the great landowners of the 

 Roman Empire, relatively very little study has been made of the 

 conditions of environment regulating the production of fishes in 

 natural bodies of water. The oldest reliable records in aquatic 

 biology date back only a little over half a century. Study and ad- 

 justment of aquatic environments to bring about conditions increas- 

 ing the size and number of desirable fishes is therefore a relatively 

 unexplored field. 



Modern hatchery and rearing practices, achieved by the life- 

 long devotion of many earnest workers in and connected with 

 federal, state, and private hatcheries, have greatly extended the 

 quantity of young fishes returned to the waters over the number 

 which could have been produced to the same stages by the 

 parents under natural conditions. Still, I feel that fish culture 

 as practiced today does not go far enough to meet the terrific 

 attack which civilization is in part unwittingly making against 

 the perpetuation of our native fishes and particularly our game 

 fish. Let there be no doubt on this vital point. The weight of 

 civilization is at present against the survival of our fishes. 



Consider for a moment the opposing forces in the situation. 

 They are too unequal for it to be called a struggle. On one side 

 we find pollution killing our fishes; deforestation warming our 

 trout brooks, if it does not alternately convert them to dry 

 ravines and raging torrents; power storage project dams which 

 prevent the ascent of anadromous fishes to their spawning grounds ; 

 irrigation projects which shunt the fishes from their native element 



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