UTILIZATION OF THE FISH WASTE OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 19 



fishing with hook and line or seines, it is possible that they would 

 desert the waters where so attacked. 



In past years it has been true that in the height of the fishing sea- 

 son, when the salmon were most abundant, large numbers were thrown 

 away. The reasons for this lay in the fact that more salmon were 

 caught and delivered at the canneries than could be preserved. 

 With the fish delivered, it remained only to do what the circumstances 

 showed was the logical thing — to discard the less valuable part of 

 the excess delivery and preserve the more valuable. The error, of 

 course, lay in permitting the delivery of such large quantities of 

 fish. Once this error was committed the resulting waste was un- 

 avoidable. Even to-day, with the increased demand for fish and 

 greater facilities for communication, there occasionally occurs a 

 similar waste. During the summer of 1913 the civic authorities of 

 Anacortes, Wash., were called upon to take action to protect the city 

 from the nuisance resulting from the dumping of " many thousand " 

 of salmon into the harbor. 1 



Such an oversupply of fish at a cannery is liable to occur at any 

 time during the period of greatest abundance of fish as long as the 

 present methods of securing the fish are employed. In localities 

 where there are several canneries in operation it is frequently pos- 

 sible to sell the surplus taken by one cannery to supply the needs of 

 another. But where all the canneries are pursuing the fish with 

 equal success, it is evident that a superfluity for which there is no 

 demand is likely to occur. 



It is most desirable that these fish be allowed to remain at liberty 

 and to continue on their way to the spawning grounds. But once 

 taken and allowed to die, any use whatever is preferable to throwing 

 them back into the water to cause pollution and create a nuisance. 

 In case of a by-products plant being in operation as an adjunct to 

 or in the neighborhood of a cannery, the logical thing would be to 

 render for fertilizer and oil the oversupply of salmon. A law 

 which would permit the capture by the packers of more fish than 

 could be used for food, if at all reasonable, would permit their use 

 in this manner. 



A circumstance which would militate against this incidental sup- 

 ply of raw material being of probable value to a by-products plant 

 is the fact that it would be available only while the cannery is being 

 operated at maximum capacity and, on rare occasions, when, through 

 some mishap, the operation of the cannery temporarily is suspended. 

 The capachVy of a by-products plant quite possibly would be such as 

 to enable it to treat only the maximum output in waste of the can- 

 nery or canneries, and in that case it would not be able readily to 



1 The American-Reveille, Bellingham, Wash., Sept. 2, 1913. 



