New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th CenturyVarious
History
New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century
Various
Fish hatcheries -- New England; Fisheries -- New England; Salmon -- New England
In carrying out its most important function--the maintenance and
increase of the supply of food fishes--the U.S. Commission of Fish and
Fisheries, in addition to direct efforts to increase the abundance of
fishes naturally inhabiting our various rivers, lakes, and coast
waters, has given considerable attention to the experimental
introduction of fishes into regions or streams to which they were not
native.
The wonderful success which has followed the planting of shad and
striped bass fry in the waters of the Pacific coast is well known. The
results attending the recent attempts of the Commission to establish
a run of salmon (_Salmo salar_) in some of the large rivers of the
Atlantic coast have been so noteworthy in the case of the Hudson as
to afford reasonable ground for expecting the early inauguration of a
regular fishery, should the present rate of increase in the abundance of
the fish be maintained. Similar striking results may also be anticipated
in all the more northern streams of the east coast, including the
Housatonic, Connecticut, and Merrimac, in which salmon were at one time
found in abundance and are now taken in small numbers, if the ascent
of the adult fish to the headwaters for the purpose of spawning is
permitted and if sufficiently extensive fish-cultural operations are
continued.
The primary purpose of this paper is to record some of the apparent
results of salmon propagation in our rivers as shown by the occurrence
of the fish at points on the coast or at sea more or less remote from
the places where fry have been deposited.
While an interesting and instructive compilation might be made of the
instances of the capture of salmon in the Hudson, Delaware,
Susquehanna, Potomac, and other rivers in which the fish has been
acclimated, such a work is not necessary in view of the notice which
has already been accorded the matter in the public press and in the
reports of several of the State fish commissions, notably the New York
commission.
So much yet remains to be learned regarding the lines of migration of
the salmon to and from the rivers, its winter habitat, the existence of
an "instinct of nativity" which is supposed to impel the return of the
fish to the place where hatched, the extent of the coastwise
distribution of salmon originally belonging in a given river, and
numerous other practical and scientific questions, that the
presentation of any data bearing on the occurrence of the fish outside
of the rivers may be regarded as acceptable and timely.
In an interesting article on "Salmon at Sea," communicated to the issue
of _Forest and Stream_ for February 18, 1892, Mr. A. N. Cheney, the
well-known angling expert and writer on fish-cultural matters, discusses
the question of the whereabouts of salmon after they leave the rivers,
and quotes the following from a previous contribution by himself on the
subject:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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