SALMON— CAUSES OF DECREASE. 115 



fisheries in England and Wales had been great and general and this in the face of 

 a large increase of price and a greatly extended market." 



TJp to nearly the end of the last century the amount of salmon captured in 

 Scotland was in excess of the local demands for fresh fish, and the surplus was 

 boiled and salted, or kitted, but as the price of salt fish was low there was little 

 or no inducement for over fishing. Mr. Mackenzie observed that in many rivers 

 the fishing was over by the end of May, although in some of the later rivers it 

 continued a little longer, but the salmon vats being by this time generally full, 

 and the grilses were deemed of such little importance that one-half of them 

 were not destroyed. About 1780 a Scotch laird, Mr. George Dempster of 

 Dunichen, discovered that salmon packed in ice could be conveyed in good 

 condition for long distances, which entirely changed the condition of affairs, for 

 it enhanced the price of the fish by enabling it to be exported to London and 

 other large markets. As a natural consequence this, by enhancing their value, 

 stimulated captures, and from that period some authors, and with a good show of 

 reason, date the decline of the Scotch salmon fisheries. For the inducement to 

 take them became comparatively excessive and their extinction was almost 

 threatened, for more killing modes of capture were brought into use. Stake-nets 

 were introduced from the Solway to the Tay and subsequently to other Scottish 

 friths ; increased captures were heralded as owing to augmented productiveness, the 

 estuary and sea-shore fishermen proclaimed that the supply of fish in the sea was 

 inexhaustible, and the public (always ready to listen to those who are bearers of 

 what can be considered as good news) were beguiled. It was useless that the 

 proprietors of the river fisheries asserted that the supply of salmon was really 

 limited, it was of no avail that they pointed out that over-fishing was going on 

 along the sea-shore and in the estuaries, for no one listened to their statements, 

 while the shore and estuary net fishermen boldly questioned the accuracy of their 

 facts. The public did not understand that there was not much positive increase 

 in the quantity of salmon taken, but more a transference of the captures from 

 the river proprietors by whom they had been reared and to whose district they 

 were returning, io the estuary and shore fishermen. As the produce began to 

 decline these latter at once accused the river proprietors of destroying breeding 

 fishes and their fry, while they denied that their own fixed engines could be the 

 cause of the deterioration so apparent to all. 



Space will not permit my investigating the condition of each river and 

 how in some the very race of these fishes has been annihilated.* Still, a few 

 remarks will be necessary in order to demonstrate how this destruction in some of 

 our finest salmon fisheries has come to pass. For the purpose of minutely inquir- 

 ing into the condition of a salmon river in relationship to what formerly existed 

 many circumstances have to be taken into consideration, especially the modes in 

 which it is fished both in and near its mouth, as well as throughout its fresh- water 

 course. What natural or artificial obstructions are present, and whether such 



* Professor Brown-Goode, Great International Fisheries Exhibition, 1883, pp. 27, 28, remarked, 

 " Up to 1798 large numbers of salmon were caught in the Connecticut river, but from 1870 the 

 fish disappeared entirely from the river, and until about 1875 no salmon whatever were seen. In 

 1875, however, the salmon began to appear, and this was the direct result of the planting of a large 

 number of eggs in that river three or four years previously." If we look at the returns from 

 such salmon rivers as the Sacramento, we find the following in the United States Fishery Reports for 

 1877, pp. 801, 802. "Although the salmon are increasing in the Sacramento, it is nevertheless true, 

 that the yearly supply of young fish comes mainly from the hatching station on the McCloud 

 river, and that consequently that supply must be kept up. If this is neglected the Sacramento 

 will be depleted of salmon." " So great has been the benefit of this restocking the Sacramento," 

 it is observed in the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, 1882, ii. p. 232, " that the statis- 

 tics of the salmon fisheries show that the annual catch of the river has increased 5,000,000 lb. 

 during the last few years." And Brown-Goode I.e. observed that the catch had increased in 

 five years, from 5,000,000 lb., to 15,000,000 lb., and in 1881 there were more than could be 

 utilized by all the canning establishments on the river. Passing over a few years we read 

 thus in the Sacramento Union, August 2nd, 1884]: " The salmon-run in the Sacramento river has 

 decreased until it has proved disastrous to canneries and fishermen. It promises to become 

 extinct. In this dilemma the fishermen threaten to violate the close season and defy the law. 

 Sea-lions are said to destroy many young salmon, and the hatching on the McCloud river is 

 stopped." 



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