Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1914-09-18
CLOSED SEASON FOR
STURGEON PROPOSED

| WASHINGTON, Sept. 1s. - Hugh NJ.
Smith. chief of the Bureau of Fisheries,
has recommended to Secretary of Com
merce Redfeld that every State in whose
waters sturgeon exist or have existed pro-
hibt their capture or sale for period
of at least ten years.
lowing to the defamation of the schools
of breeding fish and to peculiarities in
spawning habits it has been found inn
| possible to inaugurate a sturgeon cui-
| ture anywhere in this country" said
Commissioner Smith. attempts at arti-
fcial propagation have proved utter fail
ures wherever tried. The expenditure of
| considerable money has sometimes failed
to yield a single batch OF eggs suitable for
incubation.
"A possible relief may be afforded
through the transplanting in our waters
of young sturgeon from other countries.
A supply of young fish of very desir-
able species inhabting the Danube and
the Caspian Sea has been offered by the
Rumanian Government.
These Target and inoffensive fish of
our seaboards. coast rivers and interior
waters were for years considered to be
not only vaueless but nuisances, and
whenever they became entangled in the
fishermen's nets they We're knocked on
the head and thrown back into the
water. Even In the present generation
we have seen the shores OF the Potomac
River i'm the vicinity of Mount Vernon
lined with the decomposing ca-Casscs of
these magnificent fish, witnesses to the
cruelty stupidity and profgacy of man.
The same thing has been observed every
where in the country.
when fishermen awakened to the fact
that the eggs of the sturgeon were valu-
able a caviar and the flesh as food,
another senseess chapter in the history
of this fish was written. There followed
the most reckless and senseess fishing
imaginable. with the result that in a com
paratively few years the best and most
productive waters were depleted, and
what should have been made a permanent
fishery Of great prOht was destroyed.
Even after the great value Of the stur-
geon began to be appreciated by every
one the immature and unmarket table FISH
incidentally caught in seines. gill nets and
pound nets received no protection what
ever in most waters and were ruthlessly
destroyed as nusanCes, the decline of the
surgeon heinE thus doubly accelerated.
For example, on the Atlantic coast the
catch of sturgeon fell from 100000 pounds
to less than l,OOl.OOO in Is years. on the
pounds annually in the early sos was fol-
lowed by a few hundred thousand pounds
in later years of the same decade with
no Improvement since that. on the Great
Lakes the yield declined more than 90 per
cent. In rs years, In the American waters
of the Lake of the Woods, one of the
most recent grounds for the exploration
OF sturgeon, the catch decreased over 96
per cent i'm 10 years. notwithstanding a
more active prosecution Of the fishing.
THE sturgeon fishery in American
waters as a whole reached it's climax
about 1890, For two or three years the
annual catch was l2 100000 to 100000
pounds, At the present time the annual
yield does not exceed l,O00OO0 pounds, and
everywhere there is steady downward
trend In the catch. The scarcity OF stur-
geon and the demand for their flesh and
eggs have run up the price TO an extraor-
dinaTy Agure, never attained by any other
hsh, either in America or elsewhere A
mature female sturgeon often brings the
fisherman $3.50, and II is a poor hsh that
cannot be sold for $50 10 $50 On ths ElvsFs
Of the East coast"