


FOREST AND STREAM. 




NID RUWTEIR TASTING 



Inland Fish and Fish Food. 
[The following plea for the protection of fish and fish 
food in inland waters, by James A. Henshall, of the 
United States Bureau of Fisheries, was presented to the 
Anglers’ Conference, held in New York city recently, 
but for lack of time could not be read. It is Dr. Hen- 
shall’s hope that the National and State governments will 
enact such laws as will prevent, in a measure at least, 
the lamentable destruction of fish and fish food that now 
obtains in many States.—Eprror.] 
In the first place, it may be well to say that 
of equal importance with the proper protec- 
tion of fish and the replenishing of waters, is 
the proper protection of the waters themselves 
and the fish food they contain. Indeed, there 
are those who deem the latter measure of more 
real and permanent benefit than artificial stock- 
ing. They argue that if the waters are kept 
free of pollution, and practicable fishways es- 
tablished at dams or other obstructions, the 
natural increase of fishes would render stock- 
ing by artificial means unnecessary. This 
view seems plausible enough, were the prim- 
itive conditions of the waters preserved and 
maintained. ‘But such is not the case, and 
never will be. 
The natural conditions of all waters in the 
thickly settled portions of our country have 
been changed. This change has been brought 
about by various activities and utilities that 
are the result of the advance of civilization. 
Among them are the various industries of lum- 
bering, mining, manufacturing and agricul- 
ture, and the sewage of towns and cities. 
With lumbering it begins with logging. The 
breeding grounds of the trout and grayling 
are in the tiny streams forming the _head- 
waters of creeks and rivers. In their primitive 
state they were in the midst of coniferous 
forests, in whose solitude and shade the banks 
and borders of these rills and rivulets were 
clothed with a dense tangle of verdure, con- 
sisting of mosses, ferns and semi-aquatic vege- 
tation. The spongy soil was saturated with 
moisture that not only maintained and re- 
plenished the small streams, but was essential 
to the reproduction of the larve of myriads 
of insects, and the minute crustaceans and 
mollusks that form the first food of the baby fish. 
Then these secluded precincts were invaded 
by the lumber jack with his ax. The forest 
soon disappeared, the gloom and cool shadows 
of the arboreal recesses were dispelled by 
the admission of the scorching rays of the 
summer sun, and the hot, dry winds of the 
highlands; the moisture was dissipated, the 
vegetation shriveled, while the streamlets 
dwindled and finally disappeared entirely dur- 
ing the summer months. With these changed 
conditions went the food of the young fry. 
The breeding fish failing to reach the old 
spawning grounds, in consequence of the dim- 
inution of the streams, were compelled to 
utilize the gravel beds at the lower reaches, 
where the food of the young fry existed in 
but limited quantity. 
Then with the melting of the snows came 
the spring rise, and with it the logs of the 
lumbermen, plowing out the beds on the gravel 
bars, scattering the trout fry and killing many. 
In Michigan, in each recurring spring, the logs 
plowed up the spawning beds of the grayling, 
destroying the ova and fry almost entirely for 
many seasons. To this cause alone is to be 
charged the almost total extinction of gray- 
ling in Michigan waters, and not to over- 
fishing; neither have they been driven out by 
the incursion of the brook or rainbow trout, 
as has been alleged. Before the era of log- 
ging, trout and grayling had co-existed in 
amity for all times in at least two or three of 
the grayling streams, and where I caught the 
brook trout and grayling in nearly equal num- 
bers, as late as 1868 to 1873. 


The mining of minerals and the smelting of 
ores cannot be operated without water, con- 
sequently the streams in the neighborhood of 
mines become discolored and impregnated 
with deleterious matter that destroys utterly 
the food of fish fry, covers up the spawning 
beds with silt and debris, and eventually pol- 
lutes the stream to such an extent that but 
few if any mature fish can survive in them. 
The offal from distilleries and the sawdust 
from saw mills, likewise settles on spawning 
beds, so that if any fish eggs are deposited 
they are smothered and the embryo perishes. 
Chaff from the slop of distilleries and sawdust 


Slot Bearing 
Flume 








HENSHALL FISH WHEEL (NOT PATENED). 
from the mills often become lodged in the 
eills of mature fish, causing inflammation and 
death. 
Coal mining is also fatal to fish life, inas- 
much as the washing of coal, as now prac- 
ticed, not only discolors the water, but the 
coal dust is deposited on the spawning beds, 
and if breathed in by the fish, old or young, 
clogs the gills, and from the well-known hard- 
ness of carbon, irritates and inflames them. 
The waste matter from oil refineries, paper 
mills, starch factories, etc., where poisonous 
chemicals or noxious substances are used, or 
occur as by-products, is very destructive to 
fish of all ages and is a more potent factor in 
the destruction of fish food than any agency 
mentioned, 
The argument is often advanced that the 
various industries just alluded to must, as a 
matter of course, be maintained, even at the 
cost of the loss of all-fish life in inland waters. 
But this is not necessarily the case. The evil 
can be prevented in a great measure, by com- 
pelling such plants to run the offal and waste 
water into settling ponds or septic tanks be 
fore allowing it to flow into the streams, as 1s 
now being done in some places. 
By the vigilance of fish wardens the minor 
evils of illegal fishing, illegal sale of fish and 
dynamiting can, to a certain extent, be pre 
vented, as punishment for these offenses is 
provided for by statutory enactment. 
All of you are doubtless familiar with the 
loss of fish life from the causes enumerated, 
but there is another agency of fish destruc- 
tion, not generally suspected, that is the cause 
of untold havoc and destruction, and is so 
appalling and widespread in the West that in 
comparison with it all the other factors men- 
tioned sink into insignificance. It is the whole- 
sale destruction of fish, both large and small, 
by means of irrigation ditches. 
No one, except the ranchers and those who 
have investigated the matter, can have a real- 
ization of the awful loss of fish life, of the 
wanton sacrifice of millions of God’s creatures, 
left to gasp out their little lives on the mead- 
ows and grain fields in some of the Western 
States. Often the stench, arising from the de- 
caying fish is intolerable; it smells to heaven. 
And yet no effective steps have been taken to 
prevent it by the National or State authorities. 
This is all the more lamentable, as it could so 
easily be obviated and prevented. 
It is very discouraging to fishculturists in 
the Western States, after hatching and rear- 
ing fry and fingerlings with much care, labor 
and solicitude, to have them stranded on the 
meadows and grain fields of the selfish or 
thoughtless rancher. It seems to be impos- 
sible, by argument or reasoning, to impress 
the average Legislatures in the West of the 
importance of screening irrigation ditches at 
the intake. There is also a needless and un- 
watranted opposition to the screening of ditches, 
not so much on the part of the majority of 
the farmers and ranchers, as by the average 
member of the State Legislatures, who pre- 
tends that it would entail too much trouble 
and hardship for the rancher to keep the 
screens clear of leaves and trash. 
By his opposition to screens he hopes to 
catch the farmer’s vote. 3ut the farmer 
knows that the streams 

are comparatively 
clear of leaves and trash in the summer and 
that but little attention would be required to 
keep the screens clear. I know of ranchers 
who of their own accord have put in screens 
at the head of their ditches, and who assure 
me that but little attention is needed to keep 
them clean during the season of irrigation. I 
do not believe that the majority of the farmers 
are more selfish or thoughtless than other men, 
or have less regard for life, even that of a 
helpless fish. And if screen laws were enacted 
I believe they would be cheerfully obeyed. 
But in order to meet and overcome the ob- 
jection to screens I devised a very simple af- 
fair, as some of you may know, that would be 
just as effective or more so, in keeping fish 
and fry out of the ditches as a screen, and 
moreover it would need no attention after 
being put in place, and would not retard or in- 
terfere with the flow of water. It is an eight- 
bladed paddle wheel of simple and inexpensive 
construction, to be placed in a short flume at 
the intake of a ditch, with enough fall to 
create sufficient current to operate the whieel. 
No fish will pass it while in motion, and any 
foreign substance would pass under the whee! 
by raising up its bearin~ in a V-shaped slot 
and then immediately resume its position. Its 
cost for ordinary ditches is but a trifle, and 
any farmer could make it in an hour. But 
were its use compelled by law it might de 
prive some selfish farmer of his winter supply 

