Aiaska. I am seeking' the sup
port of my fellow Alaska Re
publicans. I do not seek this
support on equivocal grounds,
but frankly on a platform re
pudiating the past four years of
administration by the Coor
dinated Federal Bureaus, under
Republican Secretaries. With
special emphasis placed on the
Bureaus of Forestry and Fish
eries.
A vote for me in the April
primaries will mean that you
seek a Progressive Republican to
head the National ticket, and a
change in the attitude and per
sonnel of the Bureaus here in
Alaska. If Mr. Hoover as Presi -
dent can afford to ignore Alas
ka’s crying need of relief from
unjust administrators he can
afford to do without the votes
of your delegates to the Repub
lican convention. By supporting
me, you will at least have lodged
your protest.
Points Out Deficiencies of Bureau of Fisheries
By J. E. Krause
-V
After nearly seven years of
personal observation, in addition
to gathering all available data,
the writer finds the following
facts, which seem to him to be
indisputable:
There are a great many de
structive enemies of salmon
that thrive upon their spawn
rnd fry. The greatest destroyer
of them all is the seagull. This
bird preys upon salmon eggs ard
the fry from the first of October
to about March 15 for 15 V2
monins eacn season, rne sea
gull’s habits are to go to fresh
water streams in early fall and
stay there until early spring.
His method for taking salmon
eggs is by wading around in
shallow water picking them up:
his next method to obtain eggs
that are practically covered with
fine sand, mud or silt, is to use
his web feet as a vacuum by
treading at a given spot, then
stepping back picking up the
eggs vacuumed out of the sand,
mud or silt; his third method is
used when he gets into water
that is too deep for him to reach
bottom. He then proceeds to fly
into the air a few feet and dive
head first into deep water to fish
up salmon eggs which he picks
up from the bottom of the
streams and lakes. The seagull
can consume many eggs a day
and many hundreds of thou
sands of salmon eggs in his 5-'2
months’ stay each season a
round the mouths of creeks
rivers and lakes. The gull also
stands on rocjsis or gravel as
the fish ascend shallow water
and picks out the eyes of th
fish, killing them quickly before
spawning. The writer has had
many experienced fishermen
make the statement that che
seagull has been here long be
fore the white man ever was.
That is very true and cannot be
disputed by any one in au
thority.
My statements are founded
on the facts that the seagull of
today can consume just as many
salmon eggs and fry as he did
a century ago. Then above all
his destruction, along comes the
white man and he takes out of
the waters of Alaska between
80,000,000 to 100,000,000 salmon
each year. Of course this does
not make matters better for the
increase of salmon when done
year after year.
The next greatest destroyer of
salmon eggs and fry is the bu
reau of fisheries. The writer’s
reason, with the aid of the bu
reau of fisheries figures, namely ,
that when you clean out a creek,
and make a flume out of it, it
ceases to act as a spawning
ground, and no salmon' eggs can
stay there to be hatched; for
nearly every fall, right after the
salmon spawn there are ex
tremely heavy rains in South
eastern Alaska. This rain causes
all the creeks and rivers to fill
or overflow their banks. Com
mon sense and facts will tell you
when water is powerful enough
to wash and carry .away out to
the mouth of a stream heavy
gravel and rocks weighing from
f:ve to 15 pounds; that a per
fectly round salmon egg has not
the ghost of a chance to stay in
a river, creek or stream that is
cleaned out and acts like a
flume. This same salmon egg
will be washed or carried out to
the mouth of a stream and be
destroyed in salt water by na
tural enemies. A further de
struction was displayed by the
bureau of fisheries in 1930 when
nearly 5,000,000 cases of salmon
were canned. In normal years
with normal fish, it takes be
tween 15 and 16 humpback
salmon to fill a case; but in
1930 it took 20 to 21, and in some
instances 24 humpback salmon
to a case.
wim neany o uuu,uuu cases
canned in 1930, and on the
average of six more fish to the
case than in normal years, then
figures tell us that there were
about 30,000,000 more fish can
ned in 1930 than in years of
normal fish and about 10,000,000
more in 1930 than was ever
canned in any year since the
first canning in Alaska. And
further destruction was caused
by the ineffectual orders of the
bureau of fisheries when in 1931
a good many seine boats had to
dump overboard many thou *
sands of salmon which the can
neries could not or would not
use. After Mr. O’Malley’s three
years war on independent fish