70 BULLETIN 150, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
doubtful, therefore, whether any economical method of preserving 
this waste could be devised. The heads, on the other hand, easily 
could be saved, provided the halibut stations were within a con- 
venient distance of a rendering station. At best these could be re- 
garded only as a small auxiliary supply of raw material, for 
in no instance, probably, is there a sufficient quantity of heads pro- 
duced at any one station to warrant the installation there of a by- 
products plant. 
The fish taken incidentally in the halibut fisheries constitute an- 
other large waste. Concerning this, Messrs. Bower and Fassett, of 
the United States Bureau of Fisheries say : 
Halibut are almost exclusively caught on trawl or ground lines, which, 
equipped with hundreds of hooks, are set out from dories in great lengths 
over the bottom. At intervals, as the weather permits, the lines are underrun, 
the catch removed, hooks rebaited, and the lines reset, this work also being 
done from dories. After careful inquiry among halibut fishermen themselves, 
it is believed to be a safe estimate that for every halibut caught at least one 
other fish of more or less value as food is taken from the hooks. With those 
rare exceptions when black cod are retained, all these fish are thrown back 
into the sea, either dead or soon to perish. Except in so far as they may be- 
come food for other species, they may be regarded as a total economic loss. 1 
There is little information on which to base an estimate of the 
weight of the other fish taken with the halibut. Assuming that this 
is only 25 per cent of the round weight of the halibut, about 16,000,- 
000 pounds, it would amount to 2,000 tons waste fish. To conserve 
this for rendering it would be necessary to equip the steamers with 
storage tanks, which, it has been pointed out, would be regarded as 
highly objectionable, owing to lack of space. At the present low 
price which such material brings in the market and the short time in 
which rendering plants would be in operation, it seems quite im- 
probable that the waste produced in the halibut fisheries will come 
to play an important role as a source of raw materials for the manu- 
facture of fertilizer and oil. 
WHALE. 
Whaling from shore stations has been reduced to the extent that 
only two such stations were operated on the Pacific coast territory 
of the United States during the 1913 season. These were the sta- 
tions at Port Armstrong, Alaska, and Bay City, Wash. At the 
former station 186 whales were taken, 2 which yielded 665 tons of 
fertilizer. At the latter plant about 500 tons of fertilizer and bone 
meal were prepared. The composition of these products is shown 
in Table XVI. 
i Pacific Fisherman, 12, No. 1 (special), 1914 cf., p. 63. 
2 Bower and Fassett, loc. cit. 
