260 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
understand that the propagation of food-fishes is but in its infancy, and that it will 
take some years to attain great results, and strict care is necessary to insure success; 
but when the different species are established legal permission ought to be given for 
fishing in different streams and for different fish. We are confident that when pelagic 
sealing has become amenable to international laws the business will cease; and as 
surely when salmon, cod, herring, mackerel, shad, and all other far- wandering fish are 
protected by the same union of nations for their safety none but legalized fishing will 
be attempted, and thus the continuous success of all such fisheries will be secured 
and revenue for country and individual will grow proportionately. 
Justice and right grant that man is the owner of all inferior animals and that 
for his food, clothing, and other necessities he has the unequivocal right to slaughter 
either animals or fish sufficient to supply his needs, but there is something repulsively 
cruel in the wholesale destruction of either one or the other for imaginary or artificial 
requirements. It is against this particularly we would lend both pen and voice, for 
truly nothing was created to be so ruthlessly demolished. That we have not discov- 
ered the use of every living thing does not prove that aught was given life in vain. 
Therefore let the Fish Commission raise its voice against the cruel destruction of any 
living thing over which its prerogatives may reach, thus securing safety not only for 
the wards of their hatcheries but for the food supply for them and other creatures. 
That the waters of the partially settled Northwest teem with the most desirable 
food-fish does not insure their perpetuity against waste nor prove that they will not 
diminish in numbers when increasing population conjoins with the industries devoted 
to canning, salting, or drying, even if the business should be operated with economy. 
The swarming millions are the natural accumulation of centuries of almost uninter 
rupted reproduction, natives of the country catching only sufficient for their own 
needs and for the comparatively small trade with the outside world. As the settlement 
of the country increases there will be gradual diminution of numbers, however carefully 
the fishing interests are guarded. But if the plan of systematic economy begins at 
once, there will be no very disadvantageous falling off of the most valuable kinds. 
We have used the Northwest as an example of the plenitude of nature’s food 
supply only because the trend of business and commerce leads in that direction, but 
we could as readily use the Northeast with its former millions of valuable denizens of 
the bays and rivers and seacoast. Now the cod fisheries are disappointing, some- 
times the mackerel and herring fail to appear in great numbers, and the fishing villages 
suffer in proportion. Once, too, the great Chesapeake became choked at seasons 
when many noble fish swarmed toward their breeding-grounds. It has been written 
that bushel baskets were filled and sold for no more than one fine shad would cost 
to-day. The stories of the abundance and cheapness of terrapin compare oddly with 
the enormous prices to which they have risen, making an expensive luxury of what was 
once a drug in the markets of Maryland. Bearing these authentic assertions in mind 
it is safe to say that the Fish Commission has not begun its work too soon unless the 
people were willing to have the best of all fish become extinct, for neither shad nor 
salmon, nor any other fish, could hold out against the enormous catches once permitted 
on the Delaware and Chesapeake, as they are now on the Columbia and Willamette. 
The idea ought to be suggested that, though the interests of more than one or two 
nations might make international unity relating to the safety of the seal from destruc- 
tion very necessary, it could not well include the true fish within that jurisdiction. A 
