River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1895-09-26

slow brt memorable march of those de-
stroying agencies of human progress,
before which the salmon must surely
disappear, as did the buffalo of the
plains and the Indian of California.
THE helpless salmon's life is gripped
between these two forces, the murder
Gus greed of the fishermen and the
white mans advancing civilization, and
what hope is there for the salmon in
the end? Protective laws nd artificial
breeding are able to hold the first in
check, but nothing can stop the last"
This statement is supplemented by
the inquiry: What was it that de-
stroyed the salmon of the Hudson. the
Connecticut, the Merrimac, and the
various smaller rivers of New England,
where they used to be exceedingly
abundant?" IL was not everlasting
that did IL. II the excessive fishing had
been all there was to contend with,
few simple laws would have been suf-
ficient to preserve some remnants at
least of the race.
1t was not the fishing, it was the
growth of the country, as 1t is COM
monty called, the increase of the popu-
lation, necessarily bringing with it the
development of the various industries
by which communities live and become
prosperous. 1t was the mills, the dams,
the steamboats,, the manufactures in
furious To the water, and similar causes
which, fest making the streams more
and more uninhabitable for the salmo9s
finally exterminated them altogether.
In short, IL was the growth of the coun
try and not the fishing which really set
a bound to the habitations of the salm-
on on the Atlantic coast.
Then, concerning the salmon rivers
of the Pacific coast, the Sacramento,
for example, it is said that when the
first rush of gold-seekers came to Cali
fornia in 1s49, every tributary of the
Sacramento was a fruitful spawning
ground for salmon, and into every trib-
utarv countless shoals of salmon has
tened every summer to deposit their
eggs But in 1872, only twenty-three
wears later, not one single tributary of
the Sacramento of any account was a
spawning ground for the salmon except
the McCloud and Pitt rivers in the ex-
treme northern part of the state, where
the hostility of the Indians had kept
white men out" 1t was not fishing by
any means that had caused the disap-
pearance of the salmon, for the miners
did very little fishing in those times; but
it was the debris from the quartz mines
which drove the salmon out, running the
spawning grounds and rendering the
river uninhabitable for the salmon.
DR.. Livingstone Stone, an eminent
scientist interested in the preservation
of the salmon fisheries, says: who
would have thought thirty years ago
that the creation of national park in
this country would be the means of
rescuing the buffalo from extinction?
Who thought then that anything was
needed to rescue the buffalo? The
buffalo roamed in myriads over the
plains and mountain slopes of the
central portions of the United States
and were so iunumerable that, with the
exception of a few far-sighted persons,
no one thought that this noble race of
animals was ever in danger. The sup
ply seemed inexhaustible and the
species at least safe from extinction.
"How soon we found out our mistake
and how suddenly the change came.
The note of alarm had hardly been
sounded long enough to be distinctly
comprchended over the country before
the buffaloes were gone-al gone prac-
tically. except a few struggling surviv-
ors which, if they had not found refuge
in Yellowstone park, would have been
gone too, long before this. The yell
lowstone National park saved them. 1t
saved the wild race from extinction,
and, if nothing else should ever be ac-
complished by the creation of the park,
this alone would justify its existence"
All the rivers within the jurisdiction
of the United States have been investi-
gated by the fish commission, and none
% them are free from objections which
make salmon propagation impossible.
Where to locate a salmon park has
been a problem which has vexed the
commission for a number of wears.
place has been at last discovered for a
salmon hatchery; river which can oe
made an asylum of refuge, and the fish
commission believes that il should be
set aside as an eternal heritage for the
salmon. DIR. Stone regards 1t as fortu-
nate for our country that there Is In
our Alaskan possessions just such
place as is wanted-probably more than
one-Gnd so exceptionally fortunate is
America in this respect that 1t is not
likely that, this side of the frozen and
uninhabitable shores Of the Arctic, 1t
can be duplicated in the possessions of
all the nations of the earth combined,
which significant circumstance goes to
show how near the world has reached
J the extreme limit of its salmon supply.