36 
BULLETIN OP THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
to get it in readiness to operate before the season closed. They put up a considerable quantity of 
salted herring, however. In 1904 this company operated a trap net for herring in the bay, but it 
was not set in 1905. 
In the summary of Killisnoo catches prepared by Captain Arentsen (mentioned 
above), 10,000 barrels were taken in Seymour Canal in 1909 and in 1910; 5,000 
barrels were taken in 1912 and again in 1913. The Alaska Pacific Herring Co. 
salted and fished in Seymour Canal in the fall of 1916. Donald R. Crawford (then 
an employee of the Bureau of Fisheries) says a saltery scow with either two or three 
seine boats fished in Seymour Canal in 1917. Harold Arentsen reports that Big 
Port Walter caught 2,700 barrels in 1920 and 1,500 in 1921, in Seymour Canal. 
These scattered references, however incomplete, indicate that Seymour Canal was a 
producer of herring for at least 18 years (1904 to 1921). The detailed catch records 
for every boat from 1926 to 1929 do not show a single catch from this area. Surely 
this absolute failure is indicative of severe depletion in area 21. 
Figure 22. — Age histograms for herring from area 14 (Point Figure 
Gardner) for 1925, 1927, and 1929 
BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF DEPLETION 
In determining the presence and extent of depletion, decreases in the trends of 
abundance, as shown above, although testifying to a decline, must be accepted 
with reservation (especially when the decline covers but a short period of years), un- 
less biological evidence can be brought forth to show that the scarcity of herring is 
not a temporary phenomenon associated with some feature of the herring’s life 
history, such as dominant year classes. For many of the areas that were once good 
producers of herring (such as 21, 23, and 24) the decline has been so pronounced that 
enlrof Bay) for 1925, 1927, and 1929 
