THURSDAY, JAN. 18, 1898. Salmon.

Manawatu Herald, 13 January 1898, Page 2

THURSDAY, JAN. 18, 1898. Salmon.

The action taken by Banger Moorhouse in depriving our local fisher men of their daily bread, by the orders of his superiors, has forced upon all those who object to injustice, the necessity of studying the habits of these pet fish of our Acclimitisation Society, to find if there can be any plea of justification put forward on the Society's behalf. We really can find none, but on the contrary, every habit of the salmon tends to show that fishing by nets in the lower reaches of the river is very unlikely to do him harm. What we kscy as salmon trout are of the family of ealmonidoe and are of the same iiabit and action as the chief of the family, the lordly salmon. We believe that there is a doubt whether the fish now in the Manawatu are tho real salmon, or the sea-trout, as the authorities have never been very clear upon the subject, as not long ago they shipped a fish, caught down south, to England for a decision, and learnt to their joy that the specimen was a real salmon. In the way of spawning and visiting the sea, our fish, the disturbing cause, act in a similar manner to that which the salmon does. The falmon rrout were put into the tributaries of the river by the Society, and that was all the Society did for the fish, their next ' fishy ' business being to take as many more out of the river than they put in. It will be a difficult matter for the Society to make out a very big bill of costs against the fish, if they credit the value of all taken out. If the Society is so little out of pocket, and they are assured that there is a wonderful large increase, It does seem marvellous why they desire to do grievous hurt to an industrious, but poor, number of men. As a fact the male and female salmon after some pleasurable months at sea, enter the rivera at a regular season to breed. They do not do things rashly as they almost invariably wait for the water in the river to be discoloured before starting up to the bead waters, to the spawning bed they know so well. They not only take the advantage of discoloured water to pass their enemy, man, but they enter in largo bodies and swim in the middle of the river and near to its Burface, 6eldom resting until they reach the desired point to commence budnes?. In thi3 one instance, when the fish return in the very best condition it will be at once , ?een that nets Bet as the fishermen set them, clear of mid channel, because of the constant traffic of the steamer, and the top of the n t a few feet under water, cannot hi much of a hindrance to the passage of the fish up the river. When the fish have spawned, which they do in shallow gravel bed?, they leave, not bothering about the caro3 of the yonrg, nnfl pgain po out to sei. These fish are considered uneatable and unc er the nama of " spent " fish, and therefore no one desires to net them. Thus the important fi-b, the full grown breeding fib. on their way so spawn and the " spent " fish on their way to recuperate, run very little danger from net fishing. There might have been a little danger to the young, were they not so small. After spawning the young fish continue in the shallows till the spring, and the following spring descend into deeper waters in the river, and it is not until another spring that they commence to migrate to the ocean. They are then known as salmon fry and prooeed leisurely on their way in shoals, dallying. a time in the brackish water at the mouth of the river. * This, as we have said, would have been bad for them had they been larger, bat as they are then only about two ounaes in weight, the mesh of the nets would lei millions through and retain none. Ie is however wonderful how these fish grow in the sea, as the little fellows, in a few months' time, return to the rivar on business purpose?, weighing from eight to ten pounds. The successful passing of half the number of salmon that use the river for their habitation would assuredly stock it to overflowing (and perhaps our numerous floods may be partly accounted for by- the number of trout that there are now in it) as each female fish has many thousands of eggs. The Society, if it has any fear that the fish are not doing so well as they might, which however we cannot see that they should think so, should, instead of doing a very serious harm to a number of men, look more closely into the manner the spawn is poached upon. If the spawn, could be hatched in anything like the quantity that is laid on the gravel beds, the fish would be almost too numerous, and if tho Society turned their attention in this direction they could secure their wi=has without inflicting harm on any man. For the number of years this Society has been in existence we have never heard of its offering a reward for the destruction of shags, notable fishers, and who undoubtedly deprive the Sooiety of some of their fish, It

appears pretty clear that accepting the habito of the salmon trout to be similar to that of the salmon, and authorities lead us to believe so, then we can see no way by which fishing by nets in the lower reaches of the river can be-of any serious damage to the multiplication of these fish, and most certainly not serious enough to warrant the taking away of an honest and useful livelihood from any one.