TAGGING SALMON IN ALASKA, 1923 
75 
In the 71 Nushagak recaptures 58 per cent had, in their early history, left 
their native lake and descended to the sea when 1 year old and 42 per cent when 
2 years old. Among the 228 Kvichak recaptures only 4 per cent belonged to the 
one-year-in-lake type, 84 per cent to the two-years-in-lake type, while 12 per cent 
had remained three years in the lake before migrating. The Nushagak is thus 
sharply distinguished from the Kvichak, and it is equally well marked off in the 
above respect from all the other streams in Bristol Bay. Examination of the table 
indicates that none of the other Bristol Bay streams showed any considerable num- 
ber of tagged fish recaptured which belonged to the one-year-in-lake type. It is a 
growth habit for the young red salmon in all these other streams to remain at least 
two years in fresh water. The Ugashik recaptures contained only 8 per cent of 
the one-year-in-lake group, the Egegik 1 per cent, the Naknek 6 per cent, and the 
Kvichak 4 per cent. When it is considered that the fishes that were recaptured 
in these different streams had been tagged at the same places south of the Alaska 
Peninsula and on the same dates in a series throughout the fishing season, their 
final segregation to the different streams on any basis, such as their early history 
as fingerlings, can have but one significance. In certain of the streams this has been 
verified by a study of the fingerlings themselves on their way to sea. They agree 
with the scales of the adult fish that return to the same streams, and all lines of 
inquiry point to the same inevitable conclusion. 
Three localities given in Table 43 — Morzhovoi Lake, Thin Point, and Cold 
Bay — are located on the south side of the peninsula near its western extremity. 
The tagged sockeyes recaptured in these localities differed from all the Bristol Bay 
groups in the almost total absence of the two-years-in-lake type. Even the Nusha- 
gak, it will be recalled, had 42 per cent of this class; but Morzhovoi Lake, among 
38 specimens, had but 1 per cent; Thin Point, with 130 specimens, had but 14 per 
cent; and Cold Bay, with 61 individuals, but 3 per cent. Yet Pavlof and Volcano 
Bays, also on the southern side of the peninsula a little farther to the east, had 39 
per cent of the two-years-in-lake type. 
On the basis of the limited evidence available to us, therefore, we are brought 
to the conclusion that red salmon captured in any trap in the Shumagin Islands, 
in Morzhovoi Bay, or in Ikatan Bay on any day during the fishing season contained 
an assemblage of individuals that had originated in diverse streams, some of which 
were far distant from the point of capture and others nearer at hand, and that when 
liberated these salmon proceeded each to the stream of its origin. The theory 
widely entertained by those engaged in the commercial fisheries — that the salmon 
constituting the runs to Bristol Bay form an undifferentiated lot and pass into one 
or the other stream in accordance with the direction of the wind or other external 
circumstance — is thus seen to be wholly without foundation. There is nothing 
difficult or abstruse in this problem. The facts speak for themselves to anyone 
who will take the trouble to examine the evidence. It can not be too soon real- 
ized by those interested in the continuance of our salmon industry that each stream 
is an independent unit, that its salmon runs are maintained if sufficient numbers 
are reserved for seed and are destroyed if this is not done. The Ugashik, the 
Egegik, the Nushagak, the Naknek and the Kvichak — each depends for its main- 
tenance as an important salmon stream on the fish that are permitted to spawn 
within its own watershed. 
