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species. Every one can draw his own inference, The fact 
is significant enough. 
On another river, a large one, the Nushagak, where 
vast numbers of salmon were taken at the mouth one 
summer for canning, we were told that the succeeding 
winter the natives living up the river were brought to 
the verge of starvation because the salmon which they 
had always depended on for their winter’s food were so 
scarce. Of the thousands and thousands of salmon that 
usually ascend the river to spawn, not enough spawners 
escaped the nets at the mouth to keep the natives on the 
upper waters from starving. This fact speaks for itself 
also. 
So much for the safety of salmon in Alaska in general, 
but it would yet seem that on the uninhabitable shores of 
the Arctic Ocean the salmon might find a place of refuge, 
but not even there can they stay unmolested, for parties 
were planning three years ago, the writer was told, to 
establish canneries on the affluents of the frigid and for- 
bidding Arctic. So we see that our salmon are not safe 
even in Alaska, their last refuge, and if not there, they 
are not safe anywhere within the limits of our broad 
land. 
But now the question comes up, ‘ Will not protective 
laws and artificial breeding make the salmon secure 
enough?” My answer is that good laws and artificial 
breeding will do a good deal toward it, but not enough. 
Good laws can prevent overfishing, but no laws can 
arrest the encroachments on the salmon rivers of in- 
creasing populations and their consequent fatal results to 
the salmon. No laws could possibly have been enacted 
which for instance would have stopped the manufactur- 
ing enterprises on the Connecticut, or the vast water 
traffic of the great metropolis at the mouth of the Hud- 
son which doubtless drove the salmon out of these 
rivers. Protective laws may regulate the salmon fishing 
of the Sacramento, but no laws can stop the mining, the 
