FEDERAL FISH FARMING 



433 



A GOVERNMENT SPAWN-TAKER OVERHAULING THE COD CATCH OE A NEW ENGLAND 

 SCHOONER AND TAKING THE RIPE EGGS (SEE PAGE 435) 



extensive artificial measures to keep up 

 the supply. The operations of the bu- 

 reau, in combination with those of the 

 states, have been gradually extended in 

 both scale and scope until they have now 

 attained a tremendous extent and are ad- 

 dressed to all the species whose cultiva- 

 tion is as yet demanded. The number of 

 Pacific salmon eggs collected by the bu- 

 reau in 1908 was over 200,000,000, equiv- 

 alent to 1,700 bushels. 



A remarkable fact in the history of the 

 Pacific salmons, of which there are five 

 species, is that without exception all fish 

 which enter any stream on the entire 

 coast die after once spawning, none sur- 

 viving to return to the sea. 



This wise provision of nature to pre- 

 vent the overstocking of streams has been 

 made foolish by the appearance of man 

 on the scene ; he not only catches the sal- 



mon in the coast rivers and the lower 

 courses of the rivers will gill nets, seines, 

 and pound nets, in the upper waters with 

 the same appliances supplemented by the 

 fish wheels, and on the spawning grounds 

 with all sorts of contrivances, but in cer- 

 tain sections even carries his foolhardy 

 greed to the extent of barricading the 

 streams so that no fish can reach the 

 waters where their eggs must be depos- 

 ited. 



Natural reproduction, thus so seri- 

 ouslv curtailed, is not sufficient to keep 

 up the supply in many of the streams 

 where fishing is most active, for many of 

 the eggs escape fertilization, many more 

 are eaten by the swarms of predaceous 

 fishes that haunt the spawning beds, and 

 many are lost in various other ways dur- 

 ing the long hatching period ; while the 

 helpless fry and alevins fall a ready prey 



