The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-03-29
TIE SALMON OF THE Pacific.

DR.. David Starr Jordan has writer, and
the Board of Fish Commissioners have pub
lished, an interesting paper on the salmon
and trout of the Pacific Coast. Ever since
the American settlement of the coast the
salmon industry has been one Of its leading
resources, aud any information which tends
to fofeshadow its future Is valuable DIR,
Jordan observed what others had noticed
before that writer's Of all degrees of inenm-
petence and writers with scanty material or
no material at all have done their best to
confuse our knowledge of the Pacific Coast
salmon; so that accurate knowledge on the
subject is very welcome.
OF the hundred varieties Of salmon which
are known to ichthyologists, only five are
found on this coast and on the opposite
coast of Northern Asia. These are the
humpback salmon. the dog salmon, the
silver salmon, the blpebaek and the
Quinnat. OF these the two first are rare
and of little commercial value; the silver
salmon. which rarely exceeds eight pounds
is peculiar TO Puget Sound; when we speak
CT salmon as a basis for a canning industry
We mean either the Quinnat or the blue
back. The blneback is the salmon Of
Frazer River, the Yukon and Alaska
generally; the salmon of the Columbia. the
Sacramento and the rivers generally from
Cape Flattery TO Monterey is the qGinuat or
king salmon. This is the fish we see in our
markets. 1t averages twenty-five pounds
in weight; in spring it is silvery. with black
spots on the fms, in the fall it is often black
or dirty red. Ii is found in Puget Sound in
company with the silver salmon. Like the
blueback, the Quinnat runs in the
spring, while the other varieties run" in
the fall; aud from this cause these are the
only two kinds of salmon which possess
economic value, as the flesh of the salmon
is finest in the spring and poorest in the
fall, at or after the spawning season.
The quiDnat begins to run up the Sacra-
mento about the last week in March, and
keeps running till October. 1t aseends the
river for a distance of some four hundred
miles. and DR.. Jordan thinks that none of
them ever return TO the ocean, He says
that after entering river, the salmon does
not feed; when it reaches the spawning
grounds. its stomach. pyloric coed and all.
are no larger than the finger. The flesh of
the quinnat salmon is rosy red till the fail,
while in almost all other varieties white
fleshed salmon are found, which have no
mercantile value in the canned condition.
The gradual decline IN the salmon run on
this coast has been a subject of frequent
scarce the fish is becoming in the Sacra-
mento. Twelve years ago DR.. Jordan and
DIR. Gilbert published in the census report
paper on the salmon of the Columbia, in
which they said that scarcely any ifs
escaped the fishermen on that river du ring
the fishing season from April 10 August /.
They predicted that at the rate of destTue-
ton then proceeding. the river would be de-
pleted before many years. Since then the
number OF nets used is two, or three times
as great as it was in 1880, and by means of
selnes and other appliances large numbers
of young fish, which are too small to be
sold to the canneTies, are destroyed. The
gradual diminution of the salmon Weld of
the Columbia is thus easily explained. DR..
Jordan predicts a similar fate for the Fraser
aud the Yukon. unless the fishing in those
rivers is regulated by law.
Ii is not easy to feel certain that any
fishing law. or any system of fish match
cries. would avail TO preserve the salmon in
rivers whose waters are pl0wed by steamers
and whose banks are occupied by civilized
man. 1t appears to be a law that the
salmon, like the Indian. vanishes before
the approach of white men. The condition
Of the existence of the fish is solitude. He
increases and multiplies in the desolate
rivers Of Norway and New Brunswick,
Labrador and Alaska. where the black fly
and the mosquito combine to defend his
dominion against the intruder; but not all
the care which a provdent Legislature
could bestow has ayailed to save him In the
rivers of Connecticut. where he was once so
abundant that farm servants stipulated they
should not have to eat salmon more than
four times a week. He is probably past
salvation in tie Sacramento and thu Colum-
bia, and as to the rivers which irrigate the
snowy wastes of Alaska, the i'm possibiity
OF executing a fishing law would probably
prevent its enactment. 1t is sad 20 think
that distant posterity may never know
tie taste Of salmon; but the present gen.
Grafton has rec0nciled itself TO the absence
of mammoth steak from the dinner-table
and preserves its usual health and appetite.