Abstract
Salmon Fishery in California.—The development of the use of water-power in Great Britain and its prelimiriary, the impounding of lakes and damming of rivers, are bound ultimately to have an adverse effect on the salmon productivity of the country, and that probably in spite of the best safeguards which can be agreed upon. The lesson of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers in California, the first rivers there to to be fished for salmon by white men, is a plain one. Since 1874 the fishery has produced 205 millions of pounds of salmon (says California Fish and Game for January), and now, in an endeavour to keep up the stock, as many as 100,000,000 young salmon from hatcheries have been planted in a single year. Over-fishing is apparently one cause of the decline, but a factor, scarcely less important, is the cutting off of the spawning grounds by dams. An important investigation of the spawning beds has just been completed, and this has necessitated observations of obstructions in the streams and of the workings of fish-ladders and screens. The survey has determined that, as near as can be calculated, there were, in 1928, 510 lineal miles of stream in which salmon might spawn, as compared with the 6000 miles before the dams were constructed. It is estimated that 80 per cent of the spawning grounds in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems have been cut off by the obstructions of dams, both power and irrigation. The salmon fishery in California is now at the point when something must be done, and at once, in order that it may be preserved for future generations to enjoy.
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Research Items. Nature 124, 209–211 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124209a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124209a0