The Wrangell sentinel., 1933-07-14

were observed for individuals with missing fins. In this way the extent to which the salmon returned to spawn in the stream from whence they returned were readily deter mined. Two experiments of this kind have been tried with pink-sal- mon fry, one at the federal hatchery on the Duckabush River in the state of Washington and one in Snake Creek at Olive Cove on Eto- lin Island
 Difficult to Mark Fry
 The pink-salmon fry, unlike the sockeye and king-salmon fry, mi- grate directly to the sea after they have matched and pushed their way up through the gravel. At this time they are scarcely over an inch in length and the task of marking them by clipping their fins involved some difficulties In both the Duck abush River and Snake Creek mark ing experiments the pink-salmon fry were marked by removing the two fins from their backs, the for ward bony fin and the rear fleshy fin. In the spring of 1880, 36,000 fry were marked at the Duckabush river hatchery. These fry came from the spawning of 1929. Since the pink-salmon runs occur in the Duckabush River and neighboring streams only on the odd years no attempt was made to look for the return of marked salmon in these streams until the summer of 1881. During the summer of 1881 care full search was made for adult pink salmon with the fins missing from their backs in all of the neighbor- ing streams as we'll as in the Duck abush River. A number of marked pink salmon were recovered in the streams, the majority of which were found to return to the Duckabush
 
 marked pink salmon that strayed from the parent stream were found in the two streams on either side of the Duckabush river, one stream being four miles north and the other nine miles south of the Duck abush river.
 Homing Instinct Indicated
 In the spring of 1881, 50,000 pink-salmon fry were marked in Snake Creek. These fry came from , the spawning in 1880. In the sum- mer of 1882, two years later, a search was made for marked pink salmon in Snake Creek and the vicinity of Olive Cove. Fish traps were installed in the wiers at Snake Creek and Anan Creek. AS these traps filled with salmon during the day the salmon were lifted from them, examined for missing fins and then thrown above the weir to continue on their way to the spawning grounds. A large number of marked pink salmon were re- covered in Snake Creek, but not one marked salmon was found in the trap at Anan Creek. During the late fall a survey was made of many other streams in the vicin- ity of Wrangell but no marked sal mon were recovered in them. In view of the returns from these marking experiments it is conceivable that the extent to which the pink salmon return to their parent streams to spawn may be dependent upon the proximity of other pink-salmon streams in the vicinity. That is to say, that the pink salmon composing the runs in streams that are more or less isolated from other pink-salmon streams may show very little or no tendency towards straying whereas the pink salmon in streams flowing into large bays or inlets and in close proximity to other pink-salmon streams may stray more or less into the neighboring streams.
 Scales Show Age of Fish
 The scales of the pink salmon and likewise the scales of the other species of Pacific salmon tend to grow at a rate proportional to the growth of the fish. This is accom- plished by the deposition of new material around the border of the scale. Delicate ridges appear on the surface of the scale at inter- vals during it's growth which form concentric rings separated by spaces of varying width. The difference in the width of the spaces between the rings may be attributed to a corresponding difference in the rate of growth of the fish. That is,