16 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
succeeded in getting Barely 1,000,000 salmon eggs, and the next year Prof. Baird, in disgust at what 
he considered the unpardonable indifference of the Californians, discontinued taking salmon eggs at this 
station. Since that time sawmills of immense capacity have heen erected at the head of the Little 
Sacramento and the McCloud, and have done very effective work in increasing the now alarming 
scarcity of the spawning salmon of the Sacramento. 
I think these instances are sufficient to show that what the friends of the salmon have to fear 
more than overfishing is the growth or development of the country always attendant upon an increas- 
ing population, hut the fatal consequences of which to the salmon it is impossible to avoid. Nothing 
can stop the growth and development of the country, which are fatal to the salmon. For instance, 
there was no power in the world that could have prevented the mining on the Feather, the Yuba, the 
American Fork, or the other spawning streams of the salmon ; nothing could have stopped the build- 
ing of the railroad up the Little Sacramento or the erection of the sawmills on the upper McCloud. 
They came along naturally and inevitably in the march of events, and they could not he withstood; 
and nothing- was left for the salmon hut to suffer the consequences and disappear as hy a decree of fate. 
Now actual fishing in the salmon streams can he regulated hy law and rendered comparatively 
harmless, hut the country will continue to grow more and more populous, and the fatal march of civ- 
ilization will proceed as irresistibly as ever. That can not he held hack, and unsafe as the salmon 
are now in our Atlantic and Pacific coast rivers, .they will become more and more unsafe every year; 
all of which goes to show that there is no safe place for the salmon within the limits of the United 
States proper. 
This leaves us only Alaska. Now, how is it with the salmon streams of Alaska? Not even there 
are the salmon safe. Countless myriads of salmon formerly filled all the rivers and streams of the 
long Alaskan coast, and they were nearly 2,000 miles from the destroying hand of civilized man, hut 
they were not safe even on those distant shores. 1 The ubiquitous canneryman found them, and he 
already has - his grip on the best and most fruitful of the Alaskan rivers. The pressure of the world’s 
demand on the world’s supply of canned salmon renders it necessary for the salmon-canner to occupy 
more distant and less fruitful fields every year, and it is only a question of time when all the Alaskan 
salmon streams are given over to the canneries, and when that time comes no one will claim, I think, 
that the salmon are safe in Alaska. 
One or two illustrations are sufficient. The Karluk Eiver, on Kadiak Island, is probably the most 
wonderful salmon river in the world. On August 2, 1889, the cannery nets caught on Karluk Beach, at the 
mouth of the river, 153,000 salmon hy actual count. A short time after, the writer went up the Kar- 
luk River in a hidarka — the skin boat of the natives — expecting to see myriads of salmon spawning 
and thousands on their journey to the spawning-grounds, hut instead of the wonderful sight we 
anticipated, our whole party, I think, saw less than a dozen in the river till we reached the lower 
spawning-grounds, and then, to our astonishment, we saw only a few scattering fish spawning, such as 
one might expect to see in the most commonplace salmon river in the world; 153,000 salmon caught in 
one day at the mouth of the river, and none to speak of going up the river to reproduce their species. 
Every one can draw his own inference. The fact is significant enough. 
On another river, a large one, the Nushagak, where vast numbers of salmon were taken at the 
mouth one summer for canning, we were told that the succeeding winter the natives living up the river 
were brought to the verge of starvation because the salmon which they had always depended on for 
their winter’s food were so scarce.' Of the thousands and thousands of salmon that usually ascend the 
river to spawn, not enough spawners escaped the nets at the mouth to keep the natives on the upper 
waters from starving. This fact speaks for itself also. 
So much for the safety of salmon in Alaska in general, hut it would yet seem that on the unin- 
habitable shores of the Arctic Ocean the salmon might find a place of refuge; hut not even there can 
they stay unmolested, for parties were planning three years ago, the writer was told, to establish can- 
neries on the affluents of the frigid and forbidding Arctic. So we see that our salmon are not safe 
even in Alaska, their last refuge, and if not there, they are not safe anywhere within the limits of our 
broad land. 
But now the question comes up, “Will not protective laws and artificial breeding make the salmon 
secure enough?” My answer is that good laws and artificial breeding will do a good deal toward it, 
but not enough. Good laws can prevent overfishing, but no laws can arrest the encroachments on the 
salmon rivers of increasing populations and their consequent fatal results to the salmon. No laws 
could possibly have been enacted which for instance would have stopped the manufacturing enterprises 
