The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-09-27


WHERE SALMON ABOUND.
slow but 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 and 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?" II was not everlasting
/ that did it. If the excessive fishing had
been all there was to contend with, a
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 il 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
I 81
and more uninhabitable for the salmon.
finally exterminated them altogether.
In short, it was the growth of the coun-
try and not the fishing which really set
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 1919, 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 %
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 a 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 innumerable that, with the |
exception of 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
comprehended over the country before |
the buffaloes were gone-an gone prac-
tically, except few struggling surviv-
ors which, if they had not found refuge
in Yellowstone park, would have been
gone too, long before this. The Vel
lowstone National park saved them. 1t
saved the wild race from extinction, I
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
Of them are free from objections which
make salmon propagation impossible.
Where to locate salmon park has
been a problem which has vexed the
commission for number of wears. A
place has been at last discovered for a
salmon hatchery; a river which can be
made an asylum of refuge, and the fish
commission believes that it should be
set aside as an eternal heritage for the
salmon. DR.. Stone regards it as fortu-
nate for our country that there is in
our Alaskan possessions just such a
place as is wanted-probably more than
one-Gnd so exceptionally fortunate is
America in this respect that it is not
likely that, this side of the frozen and
uninhabitab shores of the Arctic, it
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
the extreme limit of its salmon supply. !
TIE locality referred TO is an island
in the North Pacific about 80 miles
nearly due west of Sitka. Its name is
Afognak, and it is the northcrnmost of