234 TROUT AND SALMON 



possible. . . . Not onl}^ are salmon taken by the steamer 

 load, but in addition millions of other food fish are captured, 

 killed and thrown away. At times, also, it happens that far 

 greater numbers of salmon are caught than can be used before 

 they spoil. A friend of mine told me of the throwing away 

 of 60,000 salmon at one time, near a cannery in Prince William 

 Sound, in 1900; and again the similar throwing away of 

 10,000 fish. So something like 700,000 pounds of valuable 

 fish were wasted." 



In the Kadiak and Chignik districts, the catch of salmon 

 decreased from 360,000 cases in 1896 to 90,000 in 1898, and 

 in 1899 it was almost a failure. In many of the small Alaskan 

 streams the canning companies built dams or barricades to 

 ■prevent the fish from ascending to their spawning-beds, and to 

 catch all of them! In some of the small lakes the fishermen 

 actually. haul their seines on the spawning-grounds. 



In the first edition of this work (1903) we recorded a 

 warning of the impending destruction of the Alaska salmon 

 industry, and demanded strict governmental regulation. 



It is now a pleasure to be able to state that notwithstand- 

 ing the enormous annual drain upon them, and the reckless 

 and wasteful methods of fishing that once prevailed, the 

 salmon fisheries of Alaska are still holding up remarkably 

 well. Ten years ago there were grounds for grave appre- 

 hension regarding the future salmon supply of Alaska, but 

 Congress placed those fisheries under the control of the United 

 States Commissioner of Fisheries, giving him arbitrary power 

 to close against the fishermen any stream or streams that 

 seemed to be in danger of exhaustion. 



