xliv SHAD FISBERT COlIillSSIOy 



That the artificial propagation of shad can do much to replenish and restore 

 depleted waters, or even introduce them into new waters, is amply proved by the 

 history of shad culture in the United States. 



The " New York Fishing Gazette " said a few years ago — 



Setli Green and Livingstone Stone, two pioneers in American tish culture, whose 

 names are now known wherever fish culture is practiced, were associated with the 

 initial experiment which took place in 1871. In that year the California Fish Com- 

 mission arranged with Green to take a lot of young shad from the Hudson river to 

 California. I If took 12.000 newly hatelied fish in four eight-gallon milk cans, and 

 by great effort and tireless vigilance, he succeeded in planting 10,000 of them in the 

 Saerameutii river. 275 mile.s above Sacramento. The second lot was taken to 

 Sacramento in 1873 by Livingstone Stone. He planted 35,000 young shad. 



In 1876, 1877, 1878 and 1880 other shipments of 574,000 in all were planted in the 

 same river, and in 1885 and 1886, 910,000 shad fry were placed, in the Columbia river. 

 These small fry apparently prospered, for in April. 1S73, a shad believed to be one 

 year nine mouths and twenty days old, and weighing three pounds, was caught in 

 San Francisco harbour, and the State Fish Commission gave a reward of $50 to the 

 angler. In 1870 they had become numerous, and by ISS?) they were reported in some 

 places to be practically in unlimited supply, the price becoming less than in other 

 states. 



And a later reference to this Pacific shad work furnishes some further interesting 

 facts : 



One of the most remarkable achievements of the Bureau of Fisheries has been 

 the successful introduction of the shad into the waters of the Pacific coast. Way 

 back in 1871 the California State Fish Commission planted 12,000 of these fish in the 

 Sacramento river. The enterprise was then taken up by the United States Fisheries 

 Commission and carried on until 18S6, during which period about 1,519,000 fry were 

 deposited at different points along the west coast. Their new home proved favourable, 

 and from the initial slender colonies, aggregating less than 1 per cent of the number 

 now annuall,y planted in the Atlantic slope rivers, the shad have multiplied and dis- 

 tributed themselves along 2,000 miles of coast, from the Golden Gate of California 

 to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Indeed, these fish, following the warm 

 Japan current, have made their appearance in the rivers of Alaska. The United 

 States, it is recorded, have planted in all, over three thousand millions of shad fry in 

 the coastal streams. 



A serious depletion of shad renders it difficult to restore the supply even by hatch- 

 eries. As the State reports of North Carolina said not long ago : " With the recent 

 exhaustive fishing .... so few fish escaped the nets that the egg 

 collections have diminished to an alarming extent, being reckoned by millions 

 now, whereas formerly the,v were hundreds of millions. Under such con- 

 ditions it is impossible to propagate enough fish to offset the quantities taken, 

 and the shad fishery is fast being deprived of its one support, while the present meagre 

 catches together with the enforced curtailment of propagation, speaks even more con- 

 vincingly of the value of artificial measures." 



During the period of nearly forty years, since the United States federal authori- 

 ties introduced shad on the Pacific coast and carried on shad hatcheries there, the 

 benefit to the fisheries between San Francisco and Puget Sound has been estimated 

 to amount to a total money value of nearly a million dollars. The outlay on this 

 initial work of transplanting shad and of carrying on hatching operations on the 



