FISHERIES: Return of the Salmon

In weather-beaten fishing towns from Anacortes, Wash. to New Westminster, B.C., fishermen last week toasted each other in Slovenian, Norwegian and English. Not for 41 years had such hordes of salmon swarmed through Puget Sound on their way to their spawning grounds far up British Columbia’s Fraser River.

In the choppy sound, purse seiners worked all night hauling in blue-backed sockeye salmon. One boat brought in $21,000 worth, then headed out again. Wharves and packing plants were soon piled high with sockeye, whose firm red meat makes it a fine canning fish. In Bellingham, Wash. housewives were drafted to help in the crowded canneries; in Anacortes children were excused from school to help. In two weeks U.S. and Canadian fishermen hauled out 7,500,000 fish worth $2 each, expected to land another 2,500,000, v. last year’s total catch of 4,000,000. It was the biggest haul of Fraser sockeye since 1913’s alltime record of 30 million. It was also spectacular proof of the success of the Northwest’s fish restoration program.

In 1913 the river was blocked by slides, and fish runs dwindled disastrously. To lure them back, the International (U.S. & Canadian) Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission was formed in 1937, and ten years later had completed concrete fishways around the impassable stretches to help the salmon go upriver. Each year since then, the fish have swarmed back in ever-greater numbers (TiME, Oct. 3). Loyd A. Royal, U.S. biologist who heads the commission’s scientific staff, believes that after a few more spawning cycles (four years), the annual catch will top 25 million, divided equally between fishermen of both countries.

The successful fish restoration project has already prompted rehabilitation of British Columbia’s salmon-sterile Quesnel River, where a 2,000,000 yield is expected in 1957. A $1,300,000 fishway-building program is under way to bring salmon back to the once-prolific waters of rivers in the state of Washington. Industry and government studies have also been started of Alaska’s icy rivers, where this year’s sockeye catch was skimpy for the second successive season. But thanks to the commission’s fishways, 90% of the U.S. salmon pack this year will be sockeye, spawned in the Fraser.