566 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[June 16, 1898, 



A NATIONAL SALMON PARK. 



[A paper read before the American Fisheries Society,] 



Who would have thought thirty years ago that the 

 creation of a National Park in this country would be the 

 means of rescuing the buffalo from extinction? Who 

 thought then that anything was needed to rescue the 

 buffalo? The buffalo roamed in myriads over the plains 

 and mountain slopes of the central portions of the United 

 States and were so innumerable that, with the exception 

 of a few far-sighted persons, no one thought that this 

 noble race of animals was even in danger. The supply 

 seemed inexhaustible and the species at least safe from 

 extinction. 



How soon we found out our mistake, and how suddenly 

 the change came. The note of alarm had hardly been 

 sounded long enough to be distinctly comprehended over 

 the country, before the buffalo were gone — all gone prac- 

 tically, except a few strangling survivors which, if they 

 had not found refuge in Yellowstone Park, would have 

 been gone too, long before this. The Yellowstone Na- 

 tional Park saved them. It saved the wild race from 

 extinction, and if nothing else should ever be accom- 

 plished by the creation of the Park, this alone would, in 

 the writer's estimation, justify its existence. 



But if any one had said thirty years ago, "Let ua form 

 a National Park in the buffalo region f or a protection and 

 refuge for the buffalo,'' the proposition would have been 

 laughed down from one end of the country to the other. 

 It would have been thought a most ridiculous expedient, 

 a scheme too foolish and crazy to be even seriously en- 

 tertained. Nevertheless, the creation of the National 

 Park has accomplished this very object, and has been, I 

 think it maybe safely said, the only means of accom- 

 plishing this most important object, the preservation of 

 the American buffalo. 



Now what this paper is going to propose will appear, 

 doubtless, just as ridiculous, just as foolish and crazy, as 

 the formation of a park for the preservation of the buf- 

 falo would have been thought thirty years ago. It is 

 nothing less than the creation of a national park for the 

 preservation of our salmon. 



I hear already from all directions the question, "What 

 do the salmon need a park foi ? Are there not plenty of 

 places of safety for them already in all the rivers and 

 streams of this country, not to mention the pathless ocean 

 where man cannot follow thena?" 



It looks so at first sight, I admit; but let us try to find 

 these places of safety if they exist, and then see how it 

 looks. We certainly cannot find them on the Atlantic 

 coast, where the scanty yield of the only two American 

 salmon rivers—the Kennebec and Penobscot— is only a 

 drop in the bucket compared with the total consumption 

 of salmon. Passing over to the Pacific coast we find only 

 the Sacramento, the Columbia and the lesser streams on 

 the Washington and Oregon coast, and in all these the 

 salmon are about as safe as the fur seals were last year in 

 Behring Sea. 



I will say from my personal knowledge that not only is 

 every contrivance employed that human ingenuity can 

 devise to destroy the salmon of our West coast rivers, but 

 more surely destructive, more fatal than all is the slow 

 but inexorable march of those destroying agencies of 

 human progress, before which the salmon must surely 

 disappear as did the buffalo of the plains and the Indian 

 of California. The helpless salmon's life is gripped be- 

 tween these two forces— the murderous greed of the fish- 

 ermen and the white man's advancing civilization — and 

 what hope is there for the salmon in the end? Protective 

 laws and artificial breeding are able to hold the first in 

 check, but nothing can stop the last. 



To substantiate this statement, which may seem exag- 

 gerated, let me inquire what it was^that destroyed the 

 salmon of the Hudson, the Connecticut, the Merrimac 

 and the various smaller rivers of New England, where 

 they used to be exceedingly abundant? It was not over- 

 fishing that did it. If the excessive fishing had been all 

 there was to contend with, a few simple laws would have 

 been sufficient to preserve some remnants at least of the 

 race. It was not the fishing, it was the growth of the 

 country, as it is commonly called, the increase of the 

 population, necessarily bringing with it the development 

 of the various industries by which communities live and 

 become prosperous. It was the mills, the dams, the 

 steamboats, the manufactures injurious to the water, and 

 similar causes, which, first making the streams more and 

 more uninhabitable for the salmon, finally exterminated 

 them altogether. In short, it was the growth of the 

 country and not the fishing which really set a bound to 

 the habitations of the salmon on the Atlantic coast. 



Let me illustrate this same statement more in detail by 

 presenting the testimony of the salmon rivers of the Pacific 

 coast. Take for an example the Sacramento. When 

 the first rush of gold seekers came to California in 1849, 

 every tributary of the Sacramento was a fruitful spawning 

 ground for salmon and into every tributary countless shoals 

 of salmon hastened every summer to deposit their eggs. 

 When the writer went to California in 1872, only twenty- 

 three years later, not one single tributary of the Sacra- 

 mento of any account was a spawning ground for the 

 salmon except theMcCloud and Pit rivers in the extreme 

 northern part of the State, where the hostility of the In- 

 dians had kept white men out. It was not fishing by any 

 means that had caused the disappearance of the salmon, 

 for the miners did very little fishing in those times; but it 

 was the debris from the quartz mines which drove the 

 salmon out, ruining the spawning grounds and rendering 

 the river uninhabitable for the salmon. 



This was in 1872. In 1878 the writer took 14,000,000 of 

 salmon eggs from the summer run at the U. S. Salmon 

 Station on the Mc Cloud River. In 1883 the Southern 

 Pacific R.R. Co. (then the Central Pacific) extended their 

 line northward up the Little Sacramento, crossing the 

 mouth of Pit River, into which the McCloud empties, a 

 mile or two above. 



So disastrous to the salmon was the effect of the road 

 building along the Little Sacramento and the mouth of 

 the Pit. that that year it was with great difficulty and 

 only by very hard work that we succeeded in getting 

 barely 1,000,000 salmon eggs, and the next year Prof . 

 Baird, in disgust at what he considered the unpardonable 

 indifference of the Californians, discontinued taking 

 salmon eggs at this station. Since that time sawmills of 

 immense capacity have been erected at the head of the 

 Little Sacramento and the McCloud, and have done very 

 effective work in increasing the now alarming scarcity of 

 the spawning salmon of the Sacramento. 



I think these instances are sufficient to show that what 

 the friends of the salmon have to fear more than over- 

 fishing, is the growth or development of the country 

 always attendant upon an increasing population, but the 

 fatal consequences of which to the salmon it is impossible 

 to avoid. Nothing can stop the growth and development 

 of the country, which are fatal to the salmon. For 

 instance, there was no power in the world that could have 

 prevented the mining on the Feather, the Yuba, the 

 American Fork or the other spawning streams of the 

 salmon ; nothing could have stopped the building of the 

 railroad up the Little Sacramento or the erection of the 

 sawmills on the upper McCloud. They came along 

 naturally and inevitably in the march of events, and they 

 could not be withstood ; and nothing was left for the 

 salmon but to suffer the consequences and disappear as by 

 a decree of fate. 



Now actual fishing in the salmon streams can be regu- 

 lated bylaw and rendered comparatively harmless, but the 

 country will continue to grow more and more populous, and 

 the fatal march of civilization will proceed as irresistibly as 

 ever. That cannot be held back, and unsafe as the salmon 

 are now in our Atlantic and Pacific coast rivers, they will 

 become more and more unsafe every year; all of which 

 goes to show that there is no safe place for the salmon 

 within the limits of the United States proper. 



This leaves us only Alaska. Now, how is it with the 

 salmon streams of Alaska ? Not even there are the salmon 

 safe. Countless myriads of salmon formerly filled all the 

 rivers and streams of the long Alaskan coast, and they 

 were nearly 2,000 miles from the destroying hand of 

 civilized man, but they were not safe even on those distant 

 shores. The ubiquitous canneryman found them, and he 

 already has his grip on the best and most fruitful of the 

 Alaskan rivers. The pressure of the world's demand on 

 the world's supply of canned salmon renders it necessary 

 for the salmon canner to occupy more distant and less 

 fruitful fields every year, and it is only a question of time 

 when all the Alaskan salmon streams are given over to 

 the canneries, and when that time comes no one will 

 claim, I think, that the salmon are safe in Alaska. 



One or two illustrations are sufficient. The Karluk 

 River on Kodiak Island is probably the most wonderful 

 salmon river in the world. On Aug. 2, 1889, the cannery 

 nets caught on Karluk beach at the mouth of the river, 

 153,000 salmon by actual count. A short time after, the 

 writer went up the Karluk River in a bidarka— the skin 

 boat of the natives — expecting to see myriads of salmon 

 spawning and thousands on their journey to the spawn- 

 ing grounds, but instead of the wonderful sight we an- 

 ticipated, our whole party, I think, saw less than a dozen 

 in the river till we reached the lower spawning grounds, 

 and then to our astonishment we saw only a few scatter- 

 ing fish spawning, such as one might expect to see in the 

 most commonplace salmon river in the world; 153,000 

 salmon caught in one day at the mouth of the river, and 

 none to speak of going up the river to reproduce their 

 species. Everyone can draw his own inference. The fact 

 is significant enough. 



On another river, a large one, the Nushagak, where 

 vast numbers of salmon were taken at the mouth one 

 summer for canning, we were told that the succeeding 

 winter the natives living up the river were brought to 

 the verge of starvation because the salmon which they 

 had always depended on for their winter's food were so 

 scarce. Of the thousands and thousands of salmon that 

 usually ascend the river to spawn, not enough spawners 

 escaped the nets at the mouth to keep the natives on the 

 upper waters from statving. This fact speaks for itself 

 also. 



So much for the safety of salmon in Alaska in general, 

 but it would yet seem that on the uninhabitable shores of 

 the Arctic Ocean the salmon might find a place of refuge, 

 but not even there can they stay unmolested, for parties 

 were planning three years ago, the writer was told, to 

 establish canneries on the affluents of the frigid and for- 

 bidding Arctic. So we see that our salmon are not safe 

 even in Alaska, their last refuge, and if not there, they 

 ate not safe anywhere within the limits of our broad 

 land. 



But now the question comes up, "Will not protective 

 laws and artificial breeding make the salmon secure 

 enough?" My answer is that good laws and artificial 

 breeding will do a good deal toward it, but not enough. 

 Good laws can prevent overfishing, but no laws can 

 arrest the encroachments on the salmon rivers of in- 

 creasing populations and their consequent fatal results to 

 the salmon.* No laws could possibly have been enacted 

 which for instance would have stopped the manufactur- 

 ing enterprises on the Connecticut, or the vast water 

 traffic of the great metropolis at the mouth of the Hud- 

 son, which doubtless drove the salmon out of these 

 rivers. Protective laws may regulate the salmon fishing 

 of the Sacramento, but no laws can stop the mining, the 

 logging and the railroad building that are destroying the 

 spawning grounds of the tributaries of the Sacramento. 

 It is not in the power of law enactments to save the sal- 

 mon from all their dangers. 



Artificial breeding can do a great deal, and has done a 

 great deal, but it cannot be relied upon for a certainty. 

 In the first place it is very uncertain where one can find 

 a suitable place for hatching salmon. The writer traveled 

 over four thousand miles up and down the Columbia 

 and its tributaries, from the Continental divide to the 

 Pacific coast looking for a good place for salmon hatch- 

 ing, first in 1877 for the Oregon and Washington cannery- 

 men, and afterward in 1883 for the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion, and found only two places in that great stretch of 

 country which were suitable, one on the Clackamas 

 River where the writer built a hatching station, and the 

 other on the Little Spokane a few miles from Spokane 

 Falls, which is still unoccupied. 



There is in all the great State of California but one 

 stream suitable for salmon hatching on a large scale, and 

 on this stream, strange as it seems, there is but one spot 

 that meets all the requirements of the case, and that iB 

 the place that the writer selected and built upon, on the 

 McCloud River in 1872, and named Baird, in honor of 

 the distinguished Commissioner, under whose direction 

 the work was done. 



Allow me to add by way of confirmation that subse- 

 quently the State Fish Commissioners of California, after 

 hunting all over the State for another place for hatching 

 salmon, have given it up and now get their supply of 

 salmon eggs from the Government station at Baird. 



The above instances illustrate the difficulty of finding 

 suitable places for hatching salmon on a large scale, and . 



not only is it not easy to find such places, but they can- 

 not be relied upon to a certainty when they are found, 

 for they are always in danger from logging, mining, 

 railroad building, lumber manufacturing and other 

 causes which yearly become more imminent and danger- 

 ous as the country gets settled up and the population in- 

 creases, and which threaten at any time to destroy their 

 efficiency. 



We must come to the conclusion then that even with 

 the help and support of protective laws and artificial 

 breeding, our salmon, like the buffalo of thirty years ago, 

 are not safe. The destroying agencies of advancing civ- 

 ilization drove the buffalo to the last ditch, so to speak, 

 and then the last survivors, or almost the last, were 

 slain. They were obliged from sheer necessity to come 

 to feed, where from all directions the hand of man was 

 raised against them. Whether they turned to the north 

 or to the south, to the east or to the west, they went to 

 their certain death, and in an incredibly short space of 

 time they practically disappeared. 



The story of our salmon is analogous. They are obliged 

 to come inland to breed. They are compelled from sheer 

 necessity to come up the rivers into the very midst of 

 their human enemies. They cannot stay in the ocean 

 like other fishes of the sea, where they are safe from the 

 hand of man, but they must necessarily come, one might 

 say, into his very grasp, and, like the buffalo, whether 

 they turn to the north, south, east or west, they go into 

 the "very jaws of death; for what hope is there for a sal- 

 mon to escape after he has entered a river, if man chooses 

 to employ his most effective agencies for his capture? 

 There is none. The salmon is doomed. There is no altar 

 of refuge for the salmon in this country any more than 

 there was for the buffalo. 



Ought not something to be done, then? Ought this state 

 of things to continue? The salmon of the United States 

 are one of our most valuable possessions. As a matter of 

 ordinary prudence, ought not the country to have some 

 place, if it is possible, where the salmon can come and go 

 in safety? If a stock raiser saw that his cattle were daily 

 diminishing because they had no spot where they were 

 safe from beasts of prey, what kind of man should we 

 think he was if he did not very soon fix a place where 

 they would be safe? 



We should, to draw it mildly, think he was very im- 

 provident and negligent. Is it any less improvident and 

 negligent for this country not to provide a place for its 

 rapidly diminishing salmon where they will be safe? It 

 seems to the writer that not a day ought to be lost, but 

 that if it is possible to provide a place where our salmon 

 can resort unharmed and remain safely their allotted 

 time, it should be given them without hesitation. If there 

 is such an asylum of refuge within our borders, by all 

 means secure it for the salmon and let the salmon have 

 it for an eternal heritage. 



Is there such a place within the limits and jurisdiction 

 of the United States? The writer can say from personal 

 knowledge that there is one place at least. Most fortun- 

 ately for us Americans there is in our Alaskan possessions 

 just such a place as is wanted — probably more than one — 

 and so exceptionally fortunate is America in this respect 

 that it is not likely that this side of the frozen and unin- 

 habitable shores of the Arctic, it can be duplicated many 

 times in the possessions of all the nations of the earth 

 combined, which significant circumstance, allow me to 

 add in passing, goes to show how near the world has 

 reached the extreme limit of its salmon supply. 



The locality which the writer has in mind is an island 

 in the North Pacific about 750 miles nearly due west of 

 Sitka. Its name is Afognak, and it is the northernmost 

 of the two largest islands of the group, called tneKadiak 

 Islands, It lies just north of latitude 58° and between 

 152° and 153° west longitude. It is a small island, prob- 

 ably not over fifty miles across at its widest part, but 

 there are several streams flowing from various points of 

 the island to the surrounding ocean, that at the proper 

 season contain salmon innumerable. It is no exaggeration 

 to say that salmon swarm up these streams in countless 

 myriads. When the writer was on the island in 1889. the 

 salmon were so thick in the streams that it was absolutely 

 necessary in fording them to kick the salmon out of the 

 way to avoid stumbling over them. I know that this story 

 is an old salmon chestnut, but it illustrates as well as any- 

 thing the wonderful abundance of salmon in the Afognak 

 streams; and it can be easily believed when it is remem- 

 bered that about a month earlier 153.000 salmon were 

 caught in one day at the mouth of the Karluk, which is 

 a river only 60ft. wide where it empties into the ocean. 

 But there is no need of consuming time in proving the 

 abundance of salmon at Afognak Island. It is a matter 

 of record. The salmon are there in as great numbers as 

 could be wished. All the varieties also which inhabit the 

 Pacific Ocean come to Afognak. The list is as follows; it 

 is a royal catalogue : 



1. The red salmon, the "blue- back" of the Columbia 

 (Oncorhynchus nerka). 



2. The king salmon, the "quinnat" or "spring salmon" 

 of the Columbia (Oncbrhynonus chouica). 



3. The silver salmon, the "silversides" of the Columbia 

 (Oyicorhynchus kisutch), 



4. The humpback salmon (Oncorhyiiehus gorbuschtt). 



5. The dog salmon (Oncorhynchus keta). 



6. The steelhead, the "ecmare- tailed trout" of the tribu- 

 taries of the Columbia (Salmo gairdneri, Sahno trunca- 

 ius), 



7. The Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma). 



It is easy to see what a paradise for salmon this island 

 is, and what a magnificent place of safety it would be if 

 it were set aside for a national park where the salmon 

 could always hereafter be unmolested. But the abundance 

 and variety of its salmon are not the only recommenda- 

 tions that Afognak Island has for a national park. It 

 has several others which may be enumerated, as follows: 



1. The island is inhabitable all the year round, with a 

 comparatively even temperature. Although so far north, 

 the winters cold is not excessive, probably not equalling 

 that of parts of New England. It is cooler than New 

 England in the summer, it is true, but there is much less 

 variation of temperature between summer and winter. 



2. The rivers of AfOgnak still exist in all their 

 original purity and f ruitfulness. No overfishing has left 

 them barren. No mills have polluted their primeval 

 purity. No railroads have frightened the salmon away 

 from them. No mining has disturbed their native spawn- 

 ing grounds. As salmon rivers they are still in their 

 original glory. To quote a not inappropriate line of 

 Byron, "Such as Creation's dawn beheld" them, they are 



