Supplies of Wildlife and Fish 

 and Comparisons with Demands 



The major values associated with wild animals that 

 are found on forest and range lands and the national 

 demands for those values have been broadly de- 

 scribed. In this section, trends in the supplies of wild- 

 life and fish are discussed and contrasted to trends in 

 demands so that likely future imbalances can be 

 identified. 



With some notable exceptions, the numbers of 

 animals in wild populations are essentially unknown. 

 As a consequence, professional judgments of resource 

 changes over time and recorded changes in harvest 

 levels must serve as the principal bases for discussions 

 of trends in supplies, and only short-term projections 

 into the future are feasible. 



The information presented below on recent trends, 

 and the prospects for the next decade, suggest that 

 some types of demands may not be met; in fact, just 

 maintaining present population levels of many spe- 

 cies will be difficult. 



The construction of millions of acres of reservoirs and ponds in 

 recent decades has greatly benefited wildlife and been a primary 

 means of meeting growing demands for fishing. 



Supply of Fish 



The fish associated with forest and range lands are 

 found in marshes, ponds, lakes, streams, estuaries, 

 and the ocean. The total number of fish species and 

 major subspecies and the numbers that are recrea- 

 tionally and commercially important are summarized 

 in table 4.6 by type of water and geographic area. 



Fifteen years ago, the Outdoor Recreation Re- 

 sources Review Commission noted that the creation 

 of fishing sites at artificial impoundments plus inten- 

 sified management of natural lakes and ponds were 

 the primary means by which future demands for 

 freshwater fishing could be met'^ Subsequently, 3.3 

 million acres of reservoirs, farm ponds, and fishing 

 lakes were constructed in the 1960's. Today, nearly 

 half of all warmwater fishing takes place in artificially 

 stocked impoundments or reservoirs or in association 

 with dams (table 4.7). In roughly the same period, 

 more than a million acres of natural fishing waters 

 were renovated, restocked, or made newly accessible 

 to anglers. In many instances, undesirable species 

 were replaced with more popular fish, fertilizers were 

 applied to stimulate food production, and nesting 

 and rearing cover was installed. 



Coldwater populations are also being supple- 

 mented with hatchery fish, though to a lesser extent 

 than is true for warmwater fish; a quarter of all cold- 



ly Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Sport 

 fishing — today and tomorrow. Study Rep. No. 7, 84 p. Washing- 

 ton, D.C. 1962. 



water fishing is related to artificial impoundments. It 

 is common to stock even high mountain lakes in Wil- 

 dernesses in an attempt to meet the constantly grow- 

 ing demand for sport fishing. 



The story is similar for anadromous fish. In 

 Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California, a sub- 

 stantial proportion of all caught salmon are now pro- 

 duced in fish hatcheries. In contrast, nearly the entire 

 Alaska salmon population is still produced naturally. 

 In both Alaska and the Northwest, private fish hat- 

 cheries are beginning to supplement those built with 

 State and Federal funds. 



In the mid-1 970's, annual harvests of Pacific sal- 

 mon averaged about 40 million fish (table 4.8). Over 

 the past 20 years, both the sports harvest and the 

 number of recreational anglers have increased by 

 about 10 percent. There are now about 1.3 million 

 anglers in the Northwest and 13,000 in Alaska. 



Subsistence users annually harvest about 350,000 

 salmon in Alaska. At least 7,000 subsistence users are 

 known; the numbers in interior and arctic Alaska are 

 not known. 



During the last two decades, commercial harvests 

 have varied greatly from year to year (fig. 4.3). This 

 has been particularly true for pink and sockeye sal- 

 mon, with the years from 1972 through 1975 yielding 

 exceptionally low harvests. (In contrast, Canadian 

 harvests of sockeye were near record high levels in 

 1972 and 1974.) In spite of the great fluctuations over 

 the past two decades, no long-term increasing or 

 decreasing trend in harvests is apparent for this 



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