INVESTIGATION OF THE SALMON FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The marvelous abundance of several species of salmon in Alaskan waters has been 

 long known, but in consequence of the remoteness of this region and its inaccessi- 

 bility, the abundant supply in rivers nearer markets, and a disposition on the part of 

 buyers to underrate Alaskan products, its fishery resources have not been laid under 

 contribution for market supply until within a few years, during which we have seen, 

 as the result of reckless and improvident fishing, the practical destruction of the 

 salmon fisheries of the Sacramento and the reduction of the take on the Columbia 

 to hardly one-third of what it was in the early history of the salmon-canning indus- 

 try on that river. At present the streams of Alaska furnish the larger proportion of 

 the canned salmon which find their way to the markets. 



Whether these fisheries shall continue to furnish the opportunity for profitable 

 enterprise and investment depends upon the policy to be inaugurated and maintained 

 by the Government. Under judicious regulation and restraint these fisheries may be 

 made a continuing source of wealth to the inhabitants of the Territory and an impor- 

 tant food resource to the nation ; without such regulation and restraint, we shall 

 have repeated in Alaskan rivers the story of the Sacramento and the Columbia; and 

 the destruction in Alaska will be more rapid because of the small size of the rivers 

 and the ease with which salmon can be prevented from ascending them. For a 

 few years there will be wanton waste of that marvelous abundance, which the fisher- 

 men — concerned only for immediate profit and utterly improvident of the future — 

 declare to be inexhaustible. This season of prosperity will be followed by a rapid de- 

 cline in the value and production of these fisheries, and a point will be eventually 

 reached where the salmon-canning industry will be no longer profitable. 



SPECIES OP SALMON OF ECONOMIC VALUE. 



The species of salmon found in Alaska in quantities sufficient to constitute an 

 economic resource are as follows : 



(1) The Red Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerJca). 



(2) The King Salmon (Oncorhynchus chouicha). 



(3) The Silver Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). 



(4) The Hump-back Salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). 



(5) The Dog Salmon (Oncorhynchus Iceta). 



(6) The Steel Head (Salmo gairdneri). 



(7) The Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma). 



