September 17, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



265 



witli grave apprehension that I have read the 

 following paragraph in a recent publication. 



Only a few spring-run fish have been in Mc- 

 Cloud River at Baird, California, and the dam 

 without a fishway in the Sacramento River is to a 

 considerable extent responsible for the condition 

 which threatens to render the Baird hatchery use- 

 less. 



In California certain state officials have sug- 

 gested that since the dam was constructed 

 without a permit from the War Department, 

 action to correct the evil should be taken by 

 the United States authorities. But since the 

 Sacramento River at the point in question has 

 not been adjudged a navigable stream, no per- 

 mit was required and the matter falls legally 

 wholly under the control of the state of Cali- 

 fornia. It is pertinent to ask whether that 

 state is so lacking in foresight and its officers 

 so devoid of responsibility for public interests 

 that they will continue to permit conditions 

 that rnenace thus directly the public welfare. 



But the question has an even broader aspect. 

 These fish are a national asset. They are horn 

 in the waters of an individual state but they 

 soon pass into the ocean, glean from it with- 

 out expense to any state or nation the supply 

 of energy that brings them back at stated 

 periods to contribute to individual enterprise 

 and to national food supply a harvest that is 

 of all which man gathers the most profitable 

 because it demands least care and utilizes for 

 its production otherwise unused sources of 

 energy. 



The nation is vitally concerned with impend- 

 ing danger. It has contributed the means by 

 which the hatchery is maintained and it has a 

 moral if not a full legal right to see that no 

 private agencies thus in irresponsible manner 

 destroy the results of its efForts. Some way 

 should be found and some agency invigorated 

 to the point where it will insist upon the 

 maintenance of proper fishways even though 

 this involve expense upon the interests in- 

 volved. 



This is, however, only one phase of a ques- 

 tion which has many aspects. The run of 

 Pacific salmon has entirely disappeared in 



some streams. In others it has been tre- 

 mendously impaired. In districts like Puget 

 Sound it has sunk to a fraction of its former 

 size and during 1919 only one district in 

 Alaska reported a catch that equalled 100 per 

 cent, of the number for the preceding ten years. 

 Furthermore these results were obtained by 

 the use of more boats, more men, more gear 

 and other destructive appliances than had ever 

 been in service before. 



In his latest report the United States Com- 

 missioner of Pisheries calls attention to the 

 situation in so far as it concerns Alaska waters 

 and the salmon therein, in the following terms : 



For about eight years legislation affecting the 

 fisheries of Alaska has been pending in Oongress. 

 Protracted hearings have been presented to the 

 appropriate committees of the two houses. The 

 necessity for a radical revision of the existing sal- 

 mon law has been especially pointed out by various 

 agencies and persons interested in the welfare of 

 the fisheries of Alaska, and congressional com- 

 mittees have made favorable reports on bills em- 

 bodying new legislation. 



No new fishery laws have, however, been en- 

 acted; and the fisheries of Alaska^ at the most 

 critical period of their history, remain subject to 

 laws which have been shown to be obsolete and 

 inadequate. The Bureau of Fisheries is thus placed 

 at a great disadvantage in administering the sal- 

 mion fisheries of Alaska and can not justly be held 

 accountable for conditions, practises and develop- 

 ments which, while having the full sanction of 

 law, are not necessarily compatible with the per- 

 petuation of the supply and in some respects are 

 directly opposed thereto. 



Concerning the magnitude of the problem 

 the same report speaks in another place thus: 



It is the salmon industry which gives to the 

 fisheries of Alaska their great importance, and it 

 was the salmon industry that contributed most 

 notably to the increases that occurred in 1918. 

 The value of all salmon products was $53,514,812, 

 of which $51,041,949, represented canned fi^h to 

 the number of 6,605,835 cases. Thus, 50 years 

 after Alaska became a part of our national do- 

 main, the salmon resources alone yielded a prod- 

 uct valued' at over 7J times the purchase price of 

 the territory. 



The public interest thus put in jeopardy is 

 of the first magnitude and the danger both 



