POSSIBLE EXPANSION OF SHAD-HATCHERY WORK. 



By S. G. WORTH, 

 Superintendent U. S. Fisheries Station, Edenton, N. C. 



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In the past thirty years the methods of shad hatching and distribution have 

 been carried to a high degree of excellence, and it may be said that little is left 

 to be desired in these branches of fish-cultural work. There is an invitation to 

 greater effectiveness, however, in the possibility of carrying the hatchery work 

 beyond its present scope into rearing methods, so that the young fish may be 

 planted after they have reached the fingerling stage and thus enter the open 

 waters with greater chances of survival. 



It has been exceptional to employ a gravity supply of water in any shad 

 hatchery, the shad-spawning area being in the coastal plain region where tide 

 water or equivalent conditions precludes the idea of dams, waterfalls, and reser- 

 voirs. If lunar tides do not exist then there are wind tides ; there are no constant 

 downward flowing streams in the spawning neighborhoods, or if any such exist 

 the country is too low to permit the utilization of the flow. Hence nearly all 

 shad hatching has been conducted in water supplied by steam pumps, with the 

 expense of which it has been regarded as impracticable to undertake pond work 

 of any kind at the shad-hatching stations. The activities have thus been 

 concentrated upon hatching eggs and liberating the embryo fish product, 

 attempt to carry the work beyond this point being exceptional. It was limited, 

 in fact, to the Fish Ponds, Washington, D. C, a station now abandoned. 



At that station, however, the rearing of shad was taken up in 1888, and con- 

 tinued until the abandonment of the establishment, in 1906, with highly satis- 

 factory results. In the Commissioner's Report for 1888, page xxviii, appears 

 the following statement : 



Nearly 3,000,000 shad fry were placed in the west pond in May, 1888. These were 

 held in the ponds during the summer, but were not fed; on the natural food found 

 in the ponds they made rapid growth. In October, when the young shad were released 

 in the Potomac River, they had attained the average length of 3 inches. It was not 

 possible to determine by actual count the number of fish liberated, but conservative 

 estimates placed the number at 50 per cent of the number of fry placed in the pond. 

 These results were as satisfactory as they were unexpected, and indicated a new departure 

 in fish-cultural work which promises important consequences. 



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