SALMON'S FATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 7

SALMON'S FATE.

DWINDLING SUPPLY.

INDUSTRY ALARMED.

JAPANESE BOATS BLAMED

For many years the swift reaches of the Columbia River and the choppy waters off Alaska have supplied the world with salmon. Now there is a danger that both these, sources of fish may be exhausted.

I Along the Pacific seaboard, from the Arctic Circle to the California-Ore<ron (boundary, the fear exists that the! [salmon industry may soon be destroyed.' Two factors have given rise to this apprehension—Japanese fishing fleets off Alaska and giant Federal dams on the Columbia River. The situation is regarded as extremely serious. From Bristol Bay in Alaska* comes the earth's main supply of red salmon. The Columbia River, which produces more salmon than any other waterway in the' world, is the principal source* of the great Chinook, or king, salmon. Sharp Decline. The salmon catch in Alaska this year was 1.690,413 cases under that of 1936. Naturalists, cannery owners and fishermen attribute the sharp decline to the (encroachment of Japanese trawlers. In I the Columbia River basin thousands of ! people believe that the vast dams at Bonneville and Grand Coulee will prevent the salmon from getting upstream to their spawning grounds. This depends entirely upon how the fish ladders and elevators at Bonneville operate during the spring salmon run. "j

Salmon fishing, both in Alaska and on the Columbia River, is one of the colourful and picturesque sights to be seen on the sunset side of the continent. Its annihilation would deprive the Far West not only of an important industry but also of a vivid spectacle. Adventurous fishermen, fighting the northern seas for their annual "catch, have always observed conservation rules. They have not dragged their nets along

the ocean bottom, and they have evee observed certain days and hours when conservation groups advised against fishing. Now the fishermen report that these requirements are being disregarded by Japanese.

No fish has a more dramatic life cycle than the salmon. And it is this cycle which makes it particularly vulnerable to Japanese fishing in Bristol Bay and Federal dams on the Columbia River. The salmon is what the scientists call an anadromous fish. This means that at regular periods it returns from the ocean to the river where it was spawned and fights its way upstream.

The salmon is hatched high in the mountains. It drifts downstream as a fingerling, eventually reaching the ocean. It lives in the ocean three years ;and then starts up the river in which it was spawned. Leaping falls and thrashing through rapids, it finally reaches the place of its birth. There, high in the uplands, it lays its eggs. Then, its life cycle completed, it dies.

As long as millions of salmon observe this rigid and inflexible requirement of nature each year, the pink-fleshed fish will never die out. But. according to the fishermen in Alaska. Japanese boats guard the mouths of the rivers, and • their nets snare the salmon as they start upstream. A few seasons of this type of fishing and eventually the salmon are expected to dwindle in numbers and disappear.