The Daily Alaska empire., 1930-01-16
The Fisheries Report.
(New York Times.)


 For the Commissioner of Fisheries life is one long dilemma He must conserve the fisheries as la great natural resource and at the same time do his best to promote an industry founded their exploitation and serving a hundred million hungry people whom the professional netsmen and the bureau officials are every day trying to make more fish minded. One way to reconcile these two con- ficting objectives is to encourage in the industry spirit of enlightened self-interest That takes time, it did in forest conservation; 1t was years before the bureau could bring the competing can nerS of Alaska into agreement necessary con- servation measures. But without such measures the industry itself may be doomed Commissioner O'Mal- ley in his annual report speaks of the requests that have come to the bureau for accurate knowl- edge regarding the condition of each important fishery and the restrictions that may be necessary to Insure continuance of large-scale operations"
 The report is filled with end of statistics that would delight the heart of his former chief The annual harvest of fishery products approximates B. 000000000 pounds for which l27OO0 fishermen re- ceive $l13,000000 The bureaus hatcheries turned out 706O,O00000 eggs and small fish. The fur seal herd of the Pribilofs is now seven times as large as 1t was in 1911, when the North Pacific Scaling Convention was ratified. MT Hoover was always avid for such statistics and the more difficult they were to obtain the determined he was to get them He had representatives of the bureau tagging the codflsh up and down the Atlantic Coast and he sent young college students to rest their frayed nerves on the shores of remote Alaskan rivers counting salmon they swan upstream This was good occupatonal therapy for the younger genera uon and at the same time it served a useful prac- tlcal purpose, for without accurate knoWledge of the migratons of these peculiar fish which travel | on an empty stomach hundreds of miles upstream l to their natural spawning beds there could be m lintelhgent conservation
 Judging from the catch last year which was 1 TO per cent. above that of the year before, the salmon of Alaska to be in fine shape. The halibut of the Northern Pacific are not doing so well, in spite of the treaty The goldfish industry is thriving. Who would believe that the breeders of these beautiful but dumb creatures could do a business of nearly million dollars last year. turn ing out 17000,000 common goldfish" and 4,5000 000 fancy ones? For years Virginia and Maryland have been at the crabs of the Chesapeake Peace makers appear to have been successful for Mir OMalley is able to report that the industry there has now recovered entirely from it's previous poor years That will be good news to those with whom lsoft-sheled crabs still a weakness The oyster industry of the Chesapeake too is doing a little better though the natural oyster bottoms of the Potomac were found to be in "deplorabe state of depletion, and newspaper reports coming in since MT OMaley made his report indicate that Vr- gnia IS still somewhat disturbed over the situation in her second largest industry
 It is even proposed that chair of oyster culture be established at William and Mary College. That would doubt warm Commissioner OMalley's heart for when it comes to viewing the fisheries of the nation whole he is something of a philosopher Because of land deficiencies of elements important to the health of man and his domestic animals and the losses of fertility through erosion and other factors" he says in his report, and because the seas through the ages have been absorbing these losses, it is desirable that man draw as fully as practicable on the resources of the seas" To that every piscator will say amen