laws declare that “it shall be un
lawful to fish for, take or kill”
salmon from Saturday night at
ft o’clock until the Monday morn
following at 6 o’clock, and yet
Mr. O’Malley allows the canner
ies to brail their fish traps on
Sunday. Tell me, how can this be
done without “killing” the sal
mon in plain violation of the
very fishery law that gives him
his great power. If he enforced
this law, it would allow some
measure of real conservation. I
have long felt that Mr. O’Malley
does not understand that “con
servation” means reduction of
the total catch, considering that
he charges that Alaska is over
fished.
Let me point out but one of
many closed areas which illus
trates what I mean. O’Malley
closed Tcnakee Inlet and forced
out five traps besides all the
seiners (natives of Alaska). The
seiners gave up, according to
O’Malley's own figures, about
300.000 salmon, nor could the
seiner go elsewhere tc catch a
portion of that salmon. But the
fish traps merely moved outside
Tenakee Inlet and discovered
trap sites that were even more
effective than their former lo
cations inside the Inlet. The re
sult is that ostensibly the traps
gave up 180,000 salmon, but in
fact they recovered the entire
180.000 and part of the 30,000
given up by the Natives of Alas
ka, who become O’Malley’s ve
hide for conserving fish. Many
such places exist, as Saginaw
Bay, Kasaan Bay, Hetta Inlet,
Nutqua, Salmon Bay and dozens
of other places. While the Na
tives of Kake are excluded from
Saginaw Bay, the two traps at
the entrance take annually a
million salmon. Singularly the
first “dead-line” was so placed
that the northshore trap caught
no fish. However, “in the inter
ests of conservation” I suppose,
the line was moved so that a trap
could be placed in such a posi
tion that its reputed catch is one
million annually. But why go on?
You claim to have had an inti
mate experience covering nine
>ears in Alaska and to have talk
ed with hundreds of witnesses, so
you must know all about this. If
you don’t, then you had no busi
ness writing such an article for
The Saturday Evening Post.
(o). Spacing ol iisli traps. In
the southern district of South
eastern Alaska, the traps are re
quired to be one mile apart. In
the Icy Strait District, the in
tervals must be one and one-half
miles. Can you or anybody else
give a sensible reason for this?
The two areas are identical in all
their problems What was the
difference? Simply this—that in
Icy Straits, Henry O’Malley was
dealing with a bare half dozen
companies and it was not diffi
cult to “adjust” the traps ac
cording to the new regulations.
In the southern district, there
were too many companies and so
one mile was used.
But what about the result?
Have you found anybody who
has had the least practical ex
perience who would say that
there was any decrease in the
trap catch? I would like to know
his name if there is.
What was the real purpose of
this regulation?
fcumply this—that the compan
ies no longer had to build “dum
my” traps to safe-guard the real
fisher. With the former rule of
1800 feet between traps, every
canneryman would build a trap
on each side of the real fisher,
said trap a “dummy” because it
was not built to catch fish but
to keep competitors away from
the real fisher. I have known
cases where the employees of the
cannery would throw salmon in
to the dummy trap so that they
could say that they brailed fish
from it. With Mr. O’Malley's
help, no such device is needed.
But was there any decrease in
the trap catch? Absolutely none!
Fewer traps caught the same
number of fish. The wider spac
ing of traps is not a conservation
measure because it affected no
decrease in the number of trap
caught fish.
(4). Curtailment of seines,
gill-nets and trolls. The argu
ment defending the fish trap is
based on “efficiency,” as if effi
ciency were an end in itself. We
must grant that the fish trap is
the most effective device now in
use, except the weir on the Kar
luk. But why decrease the inef
ficiency of the seine and other
movable gear? The seine is lim
ited to ten fathoms in depth.
You might say that is deep
enough. The trouble is ten fath
oms hung straight would be all
light, but we have to purse which
reduces the depth to about one
third. The fish trap however,
drops its lead down to the bot
tom. The limit of the seine’s
250 fathoms, (1500 feet)—plenty
long enough, the swivel-chair
fishermen would say—but the ef
fectiveness of the seine is deter
mined by its diameter, in such
a case, of course, it is only 500
feet. All of this is done to de
crease the efficiency of the seine,
but why not decrease the effi
ciency of the trap? Mr. O’Mal
ley may say tnat he has limited
the floating trap to 900 foot lead.
However, this limitation was
placed thereon because of the
protests of the pile trap owners
who could not build their traps
in waters having greater depth
than 100 feet. That is why the
limitatio nof 900 feet is placed
on all floaters where the depth
is 100 feet. Otherwise there is no
limitation.
.. What I have said about the
limitations placed on seines ap
plies also to all gill-nets and
trolls—namely that they are all
discriminatory and unfair and
should be removed unless a cor
responding limitation is placed
on traps.