188 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
waste in this district for the present year is not under 50,000 cases of redfish alone. 
The waste here referred to is in marketable salmon, and does not include other fishes 
wasted in the traps or nets. It runs through the whole process, from the time the 
fish are captured until the last tapping test is made. 
The largest waste, probably comes from holding the fish until they are unfit to 
pack and then throwing them away. This may occur at the traps, in the tenders, or 
in the fish-bins. Many are lost in passing from fishing boat to receiving scow; others 
again in pewing from scow to fish-house. In this district only three cuts are made, the 
end pieces being thrown away; then comes the waste in machines, which, including 
the loss of the tail pieces, is 32 per cent greater than with a careful hand-filled pack. 
The do-overs should also be considered waste, though they reach consumers in 
out-of-the-way places. A certain percentage is unavoidable, but in a well-conducted 
establishment this should not exceed 1£ per cent. In this district it is over 4 per cent. 
In front of every cannery in this district, and along the beaches for several 
miles, thousands of dead fish are seen. Usually the tide serves well and carries other 
thousands away, but sometimes the wind is unfavorable and win rows of decaying 
fish, a hundred feet in width, along the beach, testify to the enormous waste during 
a canning season. 
There is another source of waste that may be mentioned, which consists of the 
king salmon, the finest salmon that swims the Pacific waters. This species does not 
run abundantly anywhere in Alaska. An average of less than 8,000 cases are packed in 
the Bristol Bay district, of which all but a few hundred are packed on the Nushagak. 
They run, however, in a scattering way in all the rivers where packing is done. 
Very few are canned after July 1, for the entire energy is then bent upon the redfish. 
As a few king salmon are taken every day during the season in the traps and nets, 
the bellies of those not used on the cannery table are cut out and salted for private 
use, and the remainder of the fish is frequently thrown away. Great, beautiful fishes, 
weighing from 25 to 40 pounds, from which the bellies had been removed, were seen 
at several places lying on the beach, to be carried away by the tide or consumed by 
the birds. 
POUNDS OF LIVE FISH TO THE CASE. 
In Southeast Alaska and in Prince William Sound, where redfish are not plentiful 
all parts are utilized and carefully packed. Upon investigating this subject in 1897 
(see report, p. 31), it was concluded that, if care were taken, from 65 to 68 pounds 
of live fish would make a liberal case of 48 1-pound tins, depending somewhat upon 
the size of the fish. In a certain locality this year conditions made it possible to 
make a comparison between machine-filled cans and a hand pack, and it may lie of 
interest on account of what has been said under the subject of waste. 
A small cannery that made a very careful hand pack this season by using the 
whole fish averaged 8.3 redfish to the case. Near by is a larger cannery making a 
machine pack and using fish from the same stream. By making three cuts and reject- 
ing the tail pieces this cannery averaged 11 redfish to the case. Thirty-three redfish 
taken in one haul of the ship’s seine averaged 8.25 pounds, and 30 redfish from the 
cannery bin averaged 7.5 pounds, giving a mean of 7.875. Using these factors, it will 
be seen that in the hand pack 65.3 pounds of fish were used to the case, the same 
amount as shown in my previous investigation, while in the machine pack 86.6 pounds 
