Fisheries Potpourri
-V
SOCKEYE WORTH 25,000,000
TO PUGET SOUND
--x
By L. E. Hill, In Seattle P.-I.
Just a little unselfish intelli
gence can make the salmon in
dustry of Puget Sound worth
$25,000,000 a year instead of $5.
000,000 a year and remove the
present threat of making it en
tirely valueless, is the studied
opinion of Dr. Henry Baldwin
Ward, head of the Department
of Zoology of the University of
Illinois. Dr. Ward is regarded
as one of the greatest author
ities in the world on salmon. He
usually spends his summers on
the Pacific Coast continuing his
search on this most important
food fish.
After thirty-five years of re
search, Dr. Ward is steadfast in
a conclusion reached many years
ago that the salmon of the Paci
fic Coast is the most free of dis
ease of any living creature. The
Puget Sound region has in the
sockeye salmon the finest of the
entire salmon family, but is
steadily pressing to extinction
Unless the people of the states
insist on protective measures,
such as were inaugurated in
Alaska a few years ago, the
sockeye salmon will be almost as
scarce as the dodo. Primarily
threatening the extinction of
this fish, Dr. Ward said, is such
intensive fishing as to allow in
adequate escapement of fish for
renewal of their former prodigal
numbers.
Spawned up the Fraser River
in British Columbia, the sock
eye follows a route to the sea
through Puget Sound. This fish
goes into deep water and feeds
for about three years at a depth
otf several hundred fathoms on
a deep-sea shrimp. No specimen
of the sockeye has ever been
examined and found to have
anything else in its stomach ex
cept this shrimp. When the ma
ture sockeye start back to the
place of his origin, there to
spawn, it ceases to eat and can -
not be taken with hook and line.
Dr. Ward says the sockeye for
merly migrated in such vast
numbers that they filled the
shallow parts of the Fraser Riv
er and could be used as a bridge.
And now, through over-fishing
this scientist alleges within a
very few years, the sockeye will
be so scarce as to mean nothing
in the fisheries industry of Pu
get Sound.
-x
TRUE ALSO OF ALASKA
-V
It takes a scientist of interna
tional fame to make the Bureau
01 Fisheries and most of the
canners believe that depletion
of the sockeye (red) salmon is an
accomplished fact. The reason
ior this is two-fold: Most of the
canners are products of the new
school and never knew what the
Alaska fisheries was like; 2nd,
they can think not in terms of
conservation of salmon, but in
terms of immediate dividends.
How many men can remember
when Tom McCulloch paid a
crew from Wrangell, and made
hauls of 30 to 50,000 sockeye in
Lake Bay, Prince of Wales Is
land; and Tom threw out all the
pinks, chums and cohoes. How
many remember when Naha
stream, Loring was the greatest
red salmon stream in South
east Alaska; when Yes Bay was
the source of thousands of cases
cl sockeye packed by the Yes
Bay cannery? With all the hat -
cheries, what has become of the
sockeye salmon; with ail of its
scientific “conservation” what
has the Bureau of Fisheries ac
complished but total depletion
of this fisheries?
SALMON CANNERS MERGE
SALES, BROADEN FIELD
-x
Culminating discussions ex
tending over several months,
twelve of the largest salmon
canning companies in the Pa
cific Northwest have formed a
gigantic sales organization to
handle the marketing of canned
snlmon and to supervise the in
dustry as far as their units are
•concerned.
The corporation is known as
the Pacific Salmon Sales Corpor
ation. Articles of incorporation
were filed in Olympia recently.
The fundamental objects of
the corporation are to build up
a broader market for canned
salmon and promote its use as a
food, to maintain and improve
the standard of quality of the
product and to eliminate uneth
ical practices in the trade inso
far as this may be done by the
corporation and the persons
identified with it.
The officers were chosen from
the larger canning corporations
operating in Alaska, E. B. Dem
ing, Bellingham, president of P.
A. F. Corporation as its presi
aent. Headquarters, Seattle, 100
000 shares, no par value:
—v.
PUGET SOUND SALMON PACK
GREATER THAN LAST YEAR
-x
Indications point to a larger
1931 salmon pack for Puget
Sound than that of last year,
according to a bulletin of the
state division of fisheries, re
leased recently. The estimated
pack on August 15 was 363,270
cases, which compared with 352
270 cases on the same date Iasi
: ear and 150,152 cases In 1927.
On this date, seventeen of the
eighteen licensed canneries on
the Sound were in operation.