PACIFIC HERRING 
305 
records are available) was delivered to the reduction companies to be made into oil 
and fish meal. This causes a slight error in our calculations, but the amount pickled 
in Prince William Sound by companies without reduction plants in the later years 
has been very small. Also it is not an error that will in any way affect our con- 
clusions since it will slightly enlarge the amounts taken in the later years, thus tend- 
ing to conceal any depletion that may have occurred. 
For Cook Inlet the waste on pickled herring up to and including 1923 has been 
placed at 15 per cent, as determined by a company putting up large packs of pickled 
gill-net herring in 1921 and 1923. That is, after the pickled product has been 
increased 25 per cent to allow for the 20 per cent shrinkage in the herring actually 
pickled, this amount is then increased 17.5 per cent more to allow for the 15 per cent 
waste. From 1924 up to the present more herring were purse seined than gill netted 
in Cook Inlet, and 20 per cent has been allowed for waste since purse-seine gear 
takes a greater proportion of small fish. (Fig. 44.) For all of the localities on 
Kodiak and Afognak Islands 20 per cent was allowed for waste. 
On dry-salted herring 40 per cent was allowed for shrinkage, and, since small 
fish are used, no allowance was made for waste. No accurate records are available 
on which to base the actual shrinkage for dry-salted herring, the 40 per cent being 
more or less arbitrarily decided upon. However, this factor is very nearly correct, 
and the amounts of dry-salted herring are far too small to affect the results in any 
manner. 
The miscellaneous products are chiefly very small amounts of spiced, kippered, 
or smoked herring on which 20 per cent has been allowed for shrinkage. 
The available data have made it possible to obtain the total net tonnage for the 
purse-seine fleet in southeastern Alaska. The average was computed for all of the 
boats for which the tonnages were available, and this average was then multiplied 
by the total number of boats. The percentages of the fleet for which tonnages were 
available from 1922 to 1928 are as follows: 1922, 71; 1923, 100; 1924, 65; 1925, 61; 
1926, 98; 1927, 91; and 1928, 87 per cent. 
ANALYSIS OF FLUCTUATIONS BY LOCALITIES 
SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA 
The records are incomplete for the years previous to 1910, except for the reduc- 
tion plant at Ivillisnoo, for which complete records are available from the time of its 
founding in 1882 up to the present. From 1910 to 1918 about 50 per cent of the 
southeastern Alaska catch was taken by this plant and a larger proportion in the 
earlier years so their records are quite representative of the early catch. (Fig. 45.) 
The trend in Figure 45 has been obtained by the method of least squares. The 
changes in the catch have doubtless been influenced by a multiplicity of factors; 
thus the low point of 1896 coincides with a period of great economic depression, 
and that of 1888 (not used in determining the trend) with the failure and reorganiza- 
tion of the original company. The fishing effort expended was about equal in the 
various years. (United States Senate, 1912, p. 15.) The drop of 25.5 per cent in 
the trend between 1884 and 1920 — a period of 37 years — is surely significant and 
would indicate depletion. It may indicate a considerable degree of depletion 
whose effects have been concealed by the fishermen seeking new fishing grounds as 
the older were exhausted. 
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