The record-union., 1891-02-24
SAVE THE FISH COMMISSION.
The Assembly Committee on commi

mendatlonS for the abolition of certain
commissions. For instance, it recon-
mends the partial maintenance of the
Mining Bureau, which can be dispensed
with without injury to the State, while it
advises the destruction of the Board of
Forestry and the Fish Commission. The
Board of Forestry may not have accom-
plished all that it should, but sooner or
later this State must make the preserva-
ton of its forests one of the chief of its
vital concerns. But of that subject more
hereafter-just now the voice of warning
must be lifted against the menace to the
Fish Commission.
We look upon that body as one of the
most useful and economic institutions of
the State. When the United States Gov
ernment sent Livingston Stone to estab-
ish the hatchery upon the McCloud
River, the people of this State were
awakened to the immense Importance of
cheap food production by the artificial
propagation of food fishes. The streams
of the State were even then falling in
their fish supply. and it was realized that
In very few years the run of salmon
would entirely cease under the conditions
prevailing, and that have prevailed ever
since.
The State, thereupon erected commits
sion, and began the importation and
propagation of fish for planting in our
streams and lakes. That the scheme has
been success the Assembly committee
appears to be ignorant of wholly.
The stocking of our streams with fish
unknown to them few years ago, and
the preservation of the native species, has
given the people cheap and excellent
food, condition of which Malthus took
no account when he calculated the period
when men would be unable to exist
for want of sufficient nourishment
Except for what has been done by our
Fish Commission, no salmon would to-
day run in the chief streams of the State
Not only were they being driven off by
pollution of the waters, but the piracy of
the industry of fish taking. The reckless
erection of Instructions in the rivers and
their tributaries prevented the ascent Of
the fish to spawning grounds, and with
out the Fish Commission these obstruc-
tons would have multiplied and no fish
ladders have been constructed about those
already built.
In the Bay of San Francisco small fry
was taken so freely, recklessly and i'm
providently, that the fear was justified
that fishing of all sorts in those waters
would cease. The piracy of fisherman
was such that the laws of closed seasons
We're wholly disregarded, and even when
the commission put out patrol boats the
guards were fired upon, resisted and some
times defeated. No one had dared TO
prosecute the pirates. They ruled the
rivers as absolutely as ever Captain Kidd
did the high seas.
1t was, until recently, impossible to en-
force the laws for the protection of fish
ing interests; county officers would not
make arrests; township officers feared to
do SO; magistrates, courts and jurors and
even Legislatures were terroriZed, and
the fishermen went on killing the goose
that laid the golden egg. Even with all that
has been done, the Legislature is told by
the United States Fish Commission, oper-
ating in this State, that unless the Legis-
lot, toll E,rt
of propagating and protecting our food
fishes, they will in a few years become
extinct, such are the remorseless assaults
made upon them. The United States,
says Superintendent Williams of the
McCloud Hatchery, is laboring on fish
interests there, almost wholly for the
State, and he asks ifthe State is going to re-
fuse its aid to the Federal Governmentin in
so beneficent work in the interest
of California
The use OF illegal nets, the parboiling
of fish in unguarded irrigation bitches
into which they run, the illegal netting,
the defiance of the closed season laws.
the influences exerted to defeat legisla-
ton heretofore regarding proper closed
season periods, the use of destructive ex-
plosives to kill fish, the illegal seining.
and score of other evils, have operated
and will operate to destroy our food
fishes, if the State withdraws its commits
sion and withholds liberal aid from it.
The State has two hatcheries now and
needs more, but the proposition of the
Assembly committee is to abandon what
we have, though there is vague recon-
mendation about maintaining ono of
them, but by whom we are not informed.
The Government of the United States
gives us annually several millions of
eyed salmon eggs, but we are to coolly
inform it that we want no more, as we
will dispense with the necessary agency
to receive them. The trout hatchery at
Lake Tahoe is stocking our lakes and
streams with trout, but we are told that
it is wise to cease the work and abandon
the property we have there.
Black bass, one of the gamest of fishes.
and of great service in destroying fish
enemies, we have just begun to benefit
by, but the Assembly committee pro-
poses to abandon the commission that is
promoting the culture of this valuable
food fish. More than hundred streams
and twenty lakes have been stocked in
:,I y