CONSERVATION DURING SPAWNING SEASON 



589 



the ocean to deposit their eggs, swimming against strong currents 

 much of the way, some species leaping rapids and falls, in order to 

 deposit their eggs in localities where the conditions of water and 

 food are suitable and the water is shallow enough to allow the sun's 

 rays to warm it sufficiently to cause the eggs to develop. The 

 Chinook salmon of the Pacific Coast, which is used in the western 

 canning industry, travels over a thousand miles up the Columbia 

 and other rivers, to 

 the headwaters where 

 it spawns. The 

 salmon begin to pass 

 up the rivers in early 

 spring, and reach the 

 spawning beds, shal- 

 low deposits of gravel 

 in cool mountain 

 streams, before late 

 summer. Here the 

 fish, both males and 

 females, remain until 

 the temperature of 

 the water falls to 

 about 54° Fahrenheit. 

 The eggs and milt are 

 then deposited, and 

 the old fish die, leaving the eggs to be hatched out the following 

 spring in the water warmed by the sun. 



Need of conservation during spawning season. The shad 

 within recent times have abandoned, their breeding places in 

 the Connecticut River and have almost disappeared from other 

 rivers where they breed, partly because they are caught at the 

 breeding season and partly because of the pollution of the rivers 

 in which they breed. The salmon have been exterminated along 

 our eastern coast within the past few decades. Only a few years 

 hence, our western salmon will be extinct if fishing is continued 

 at the present rate. More fish must be allowed to reach their 

 breeding places, 



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Courtesy of Field and Stream Magazine 

 A salmon jumping a fall on its way upstream to spawn. 



