ACCLAMATISATION OF SALMON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2436, 21 November 1900, Page 52

ACCLAMATISATION OF SALMON.

THE INTENTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT. (From Oxtb Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, November 18. Details of a scheme in connection with the acclimatisation of salmon, which the

Government intends to initiate shortly, are given by the Post, which says : " The delights of having a 201b salmon at the. end of a good rod are comparatively unknown to New Zealanders, but are within measurable distance. Within recent years several fine fish caught by fishermen along the coast in the neighbourhood of fresh water estuaries have been pronounced by experts to be true salmon, which are difficult to distinguish from our gigantic salmon trout. This has given rise to the hope that the salmon will become permanently acclimatised, and that the salmon fisheries of New Zealand will be something to talk enthusiastically about in the future. In the session of Parliament just closed a vote was passed for the establishment of .permanent hatcheries, and the Government has now decided to construct a salmonrearing station on the Hakataramea Stream, a tributary of the Waitaki, North Olago. Accordingly, Mv L. F. Ayson, 'Government inspector of fisheries, leaves foi the south to-night to superintend the work. An area of some 20 acres has been acquired (part of the Hon. Robert Campbell and Co.'s Station Peak property), and Mr Ayson states that it seems in every way suitable for the purpose. Arrangements have been made by which the Agentgeneral is to send out annual supplies of ova, which will be hatched out, and the young fish reared until they are at any rate three years of age before being liberated. The first consignment, numbering from half a million to 800,000 ova, will arrive from America, being the gift of the United States Fish Commission and tLe Canadian Government to the Government of this colony. They were to have been sent by the Sierra, but as that vessel is not coining to the colony they will be pent along by another vessel. As it is improbable that the Hakatai'amea hatchery will be advanced enough to accommodate the whole consignment, instructions ho,ve been given by the Minister of Marine for tha construction of temporary premises on one of the streams that flow into Lake Ohau at the head of the Waitaki, 60 miles from Hakataramea, and if the whole consignment arrives at once portion of it will be sent on there. Later on, Mr Ayson intends recommending the importation of a consignment of ova of the Atlantic salmon, which is a better sporting fish than its American or Scotch cousins. Each year the Government will import just as many as can be reared. Mr Ayson has no doubt that it will be easy enough to rear salmon to a large size before liberation. Whether the fish can be established permanently in our rivers time alone can prove. Up to the present the attempt to firmly establish them in the rivers by turning them out in the fry stage has not been a success. They naturally migrate to the sea at certain .seasons, and fail to return to the rivers. 'Mr Ayson has two important points in his favour. Scientific experts the world over agree that in whatever river a salmon are hatched and reared most of them return to that river, and spawn on maturing. Mr Ayson proposes, in the first instance, to rear his salmon from the egg until they mature full ot ova the first time before liberating them. By doing that he secures these important considerations : (1) The salmon are of such size before going to sea that they can take care of themselves against natural enemies ; and (2) the salmon, being full of ova and near spawning before liberation, thej* will deposit the ova in the river before going to sea for the first time. 'Consequently there will be the natural spawning and the natural hatching out in the fresh water streams. A further point which is encoiiraging in the hope of ultimate success is the extraordinary size to which salmon previously caught in the sea off the coast have grown. Fish of 201b weight have been taken, and one weighing 351b was reported to have been netted ■by fishermen in the Pelorus Sound • some time ago. These big fish so far have kept away from the rivers, in which the biggest salmon caught has been a two-year-old, but if expert testimony is correct that the fish return to the stream in which they are hatched and spawn, the success of the New Zealand exiDeriment seems assured."