Report of the commissioner for 1877.

  • United States Fish Commission
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the commissioner for 1877. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/1134 (page 19)
    States Commission and those of the respective State commissions. It in very gratifying1 to note the rapidly increasing interest in the whole business of lisli protection and fish propagation shown by the citizens of the United States and culminating in the measures taken by national and State legislatures for fostering whatever looks towards the increase of the fish supply. At the time when the United States Commission was authorized by Congress and organized, the only State fish commis- sions were those of Alabama, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachu- setts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont, eleven in all, and of these a small number only were provided with funds and power to enforce legislation taking definite action in regard to the increase of a supply. The list now amounts to twenty-six, all provided with intelligent and able commissioners, for the % most part with appropriations sufficient to enable them to survey the ground and take the proper steps towards future action. Quite a num- ber of these have their own hatching-houses, in which are hatched out not only the local species, but also such eggs as may be supplied by the United States Commission, especially of the Eastern salmon, the land locked salmon, and the California salmon. As already remarked, these State commissions, in the aggregate, accomplish a very great deal towards the protection and restoration of their fisheries respectively, and especially in the way of distributing trout and black bass in their local waters. Eoth of these are fish with which the United States Commission have nothing to do, as they come more particularly within the province of the State organizations. The states bordering on the great lakes have also accomplished a .still greater work in the hatching out and introduction of the young of white- fish and lake trout, the former being by far the most important species of the lakes, and one for the multiplication of which, on a large scale, every effort should be made. The hearty co-operation of these State commissions with that of the I nited States is a subject of especial gratification, there being, so far as I can learn, no jealousy whatever, but all working harmoniously towards a common end. This co-operation of the State commissions with that of the United States is exhibited in two ways, direct and indirect. The former is shown in the work of the propagation of the Salmo solar, or the salmon of Maine, which has been carried on at Bucksport, on the Penob- scot River, by the United States, aided by an appropriation of money by the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts, each receiving its share ot eggs in proportion to its investment of $500. The State of Maine has, I believe, made no actual appropriation, but is concerned as requiring by law the introduction into its own waters of one-fourth of all the fish hatched out by foreign co-operation within its borders. A similar arrangement has been made with Massachusetts and Con- necticut in the propagation of the land-locked salmon, both at Sebec, in 1875 and 1874, and at Grand Lake Stream, for several years up to the present.