POOH SALMON SEASON

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 99, 26 February 1947, Page 6

POOH SALMON SEASON

ALASKA’S MOST UNFAVOURABLE YEAR Alaska’s most unfavourable salmon season in two decades and one of the greatest California tuna catches in history highlighted the nation’s fishing industry as it swung into the final quarter of 1946 production, states a recent issue of an American newspaper.

Milton C. James, Assistant Director of the Wish and Wildlife Service, said that extremely low production in several major fisheries sent the pack of canned fish in the United States and Alaska, during the first nine months of 1946, down to 386,580,600 pound, 8 per cent. below last year.

The pack on September 30, 1945, was 421,597,700 pounds. “The decline occurred despite high production of California .tuna and Maine sardines, and is largely due to the failure of the Alaska salmon fishery, the albacore fishery off Washington and Oregon, and the Pacific sardine fishery,” Mr James said.

“Unless there is an unexpected improvement in fishing for Pacific sardines, there is little chance that production will equal that of 1945. The West Coast sardine pack, Sepember 30 was 760,175 cases, about half the total for the similar period in 1945, 1,592,441 cases. Alaska’s salmon pack fell to the lowest level since 1927—0n1y 3,879,955 cases at the season’s end in September. The 1945 pack, also small, was 4,350,471 cases. Over a tenyear period production ranged from 5,000,000 to 8,000,000 cases. The salmon pack on the northwestern coast of the United States, only slightly below the 1945 level continued a downward trend evident since 1941. The 1945 pack on September 30, was 516,729 cases, compared with 550,000 cases September 30, 1945. In contrast to the low yields, the California tuna fisher, third largest on,the Pacific Coast, packed 3,596,817 cases in the first nine months of 1946, about 35 per cent, above the figure for the corresponding period last year. Packers expected in 1946 pack to exceed the largest prewar pack of 4,162,336 cases in 1940. The albacore, a white-meated tuna was mysteriously scarce in the northern waters, where it has supported a fishery since 1937. Landings at Astoria, were the smallest in history, and receipts at other Oregon and Washington ports were correspondingly low. Maine sardine canning, spurted in August and September to bring the nine month pack to 2,123,222 cases ahead of the September 30, 1945, pack of 1,953,216 cases. Production of canned sea herring in Maine was 75,240 cases as compared with 78,500 in 1945. The pack of Atlantic mackerel, on the other hand, was 203,949 cases, about four times the 1945 production. The Pacific mackerel season, which reaches its peak in the last months of the year, by September 30, was 195,225 cases, an increase of 55,000. The pack of shrimp on the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, still below the prewar normal, was 168,209 cases September 30, compared with 88,190 last year.