Trollers Advise O’Malley And Ask
That Sea Lion Be Destroyed
Mr. Henry O'Malley,
Commissioner of Fisheries,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir:
Referring now to your favor of
February 23, 1929, we beg leave
to make the following reply to
the questions in the order of
your asking:
1. What percentage of the
catch consists of fisli under six
pounds?
Answer. Our best estimate is
that this amounts to 3 per cent.
2. What is the maximum, the
minimum, and the average of
number of trolling lines per
boat?
Answer. The maximum is 7,
the minimum 4, and the aver
age number of trolling is 5. We
affirm that no person who is
trolling seriously uses less than
4.
3. How many liooks are or
dinarily used on each trolling
line?
Answer. Three.
4. According to the best in
formation available to you. how
many trolling boats are operat
ed in southeastern Alaska by
resident trollers, natives and
whites, and how many come into
southeastern Alaska each sea
son from the outside?
Answer: Acording to the fish
ing tax collectors there were
1,705 resident trollers and 905
nonresident trollers in south
eastern Alaska last year.
5. How many of these boats
are ordinarily operated in the
months of January, February,
and March?
Answer: During January and
February about 25 per - cent of
the resident trollers, and during
March 75 per cent thereof. The
nonresident trollers come in
April and May.
We note that you say you are
not satisfied as to the effective
ness of our proposed regulation
making it unlawful to catch for
commercial use any king sal
mon that would dress under six
pounds.
You must grant us this—that
we speak from our experience
and on a subject on which you
tain, which uncertainty, your
letter, says, has developed since
we began to correspond with
you on the subject of regula
tions that has shut us up.
We hope that the closing order
will be rescinded because it does
particle t o the conserva
tion of the king salmon. The
only effect is this—that resident
Alaskans will have to share with
the nonresident troller in April
the same fish which these same
Alaskans might have caught
during January, February and
March. If these early king sal
mon were spawn fish, the clos
ing order would help. But these
king salmon are feeding fish
now confess you are very uncer
which will continue to swim
around the outside trolling areas
looking for feed to April and on.
Now as to your promise of
“more effective restrictive meas
ures” interpreted in the light of
your last paragraph in which
you state that inferentially our
organization desires “to avoid
anything more than possibly a
very nominal restriction of sal
mon trolling operations” permit
us to say that such an inference
questions our good faith and is
not warranted by the facts
which in short are these—you
have prohibited trolling during
January, February and March
for purposes of conservation, and
we have made such a strong
case against the effectiveness of
that order that in your last let- •
terse you admit that perhaps
the order “is less effective as a
conservation measure than at
first contemplated.” If you had
given us the opportunity of ad
vising with you similar to your
conferences in Seattle with other
fishing interests, we would have
brought up our proposed sub
stitute, namely, that king sal
mon that would dress under six
pounds be protected during the
entire year. The results of your
plan would be wiped out in April,
whereas our plan would save
three per cent of the king sal
mon.
We are in earnest in our de
sire to assist you in conserving
the king salmon, but we insist
that the means adopted should
not hurt us if that is possible to
avoid, and we wish to say here,
that if no other way remains
we will submit willing to be hurt.
But why is the first conserva
tion measure one that contem
plates “curtailing” our “opera
tions ” Suppose you could ac
complish the same result by pro
tecting the king salmon from its
predatory enemies? We call at
tention to the protected sea
lion which not only exceed in
number the entire trolling fleet
but also destroy more king sal
mon. One of our committee has
had as many as nine king sal
mon eaten off his hooks during
one day. Others of us have been
surrounded by six and seven sea
lions at one time. These anim
als during the king salmon sea
son, live almost exclusively on
king salmon, passing up cohoes
and other kinds of salmon.
Our already large herds of sea