such areas the officers of the Coast Guard, or of the Customs, or of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, or the United States marshals or their deputies, may go on board any vessel so found hovering or being kept within such area and examine the same, and bring the same into port for enforcement against such vessel and the merchandise therein, and the persons thereon, of the laws relating to the salmon fishery of Alaska; declares that such vessels so found to have been employed in the fishing of Alaska salmon in any of the waters of the United States adjacent to the coast of Alaska over which the United States has jurisdiction, in violation of the provisions of the law, shall be forfeited to the United States. The bill contains other penal provisions for violation of its terms, not necessary to mention in detail at this point.

Before proceeding to a discussion of the legal and other questions involved, it may be well to tell the committee something of the salmon fishery and the salmon packing industry of Alaska.

Mr. SIROVICH. Does that apply within the 3-mile limit, or outside of it?

Mr. DIMOND. Both within and outside of the so-called 3-mile limit, Doctor. That, however, is a question I will discuss in detail later, and I would prefer not to go into it at this particular point.

The salmon fishery of Alaska constitutes the greatest industry of the Territory, both in number of people employed and in value of the product. Alaska usually produces more than one-half of the salmon pack of the world. The Alaska salmon industry furnishes from 50 to 77 percent of the revenue of the Territory, a large part of which is derived from the Bristol Bay fishery. Approximately 25,000 people work in the industry during the salmon packing season of each year, and the yearly value of the product amounts to upward of $40,000,000, sometimes more. The industry is of the greater importance because it concerns the use of a source of natural wealth which requires only reasonable conservation to make it perpetual. Unlike domestic land animals, it is not necessary to provide food or shelter for the salmon. No herders are required. The salmon obtain their food without the assistance of man, and the only labor to be performed by man, in order to avail himself of this vast store of annually replenished wealth, is to take the salmon from the sea and to can or process them so as to preserve them as a palatable and nutritious food, and at the same time to insure the escapement to the spawning grounds of a sufficient number of salmon to adequately perpetuate the species.

The testimony I shall present here today involves potentially the entire salmon fishery of Alaska, but we are more immediately concerned with that part of the fishery which is carried on in Bristol Bay, an arm of Bering Sea, and also the fishery which is carried on all along both sides of the Alaska Peninsula, from Cape Shuyak on the northeast to St. Lawrence Island, which is situated on Bering Sea, south of the strait of that name. In this region a large part of the most valuable salmon-the red species is obtained. The principal salmon fishing district of the region is Bristol Bay, a large bay situated on the west side of the Alaska Peninsula and opening into Bering Sea. The Alaska Peninsula region produces each year on the average at least 3,000,000 cases of salmon, 48 pounds to the case, most of which is the exceptionally valuable red salmon. If anything, it is an understate

ment to say that the annual value of the salmon fishery of the Alaska Peninsula and Bristol Bay area is $15,000,000.

Outside of Alaska, the Bristol Bay area is best known of all the Alaska salmon fishing grounds. It was one of the earliest salmon districts in Alaska to be developed and used, and it continues to be more important in output and value than any other salmon area of equal size in the Territory. The Bristol Bay district is of exceptional consequence because many of the salmon caught on the east side of the Alaska Peninsula, particularly in the vicinity of Shumagin Islands, are salmon which have spawned in the lakes and rivers opening into Bristol Bay and which, as one may say, temporarily visit the east side of the Alaska Peninsula before returning to the rivers and lakes in which they were spawned. So it is that whatever is done with respect to the salmon which finally enter Bristol Bay affects not only the fishery at Bristol Bay proper, but the entire salmon fishery of the Alaska Peninsula.

Mr. SIROVICH. About where are Shumagin Islands on that map? Mr. DIMOND. I am pointing to them now [indicating]. I am pointing now to Kodiak Island, and the Shumagin Islands are southwest of Kodiak Island. The villages of Unga and Squaw Harbor are situated on the Shumagin Islands, and the names of some of the individual islands are Unga, Popof, Nagai, and Big and Little Koniuji. Some of them are names on this map.

Mr. SIROVICH. Are the Shumagin Islands a part of the Aleutian Islands?

Mr. DIMOND. No; the Shumagin Islands are not a part of the Aleutian Islands, Doctor; but it has been proved beyond dispute that some of the salmon which spawn in the lakes and rivers which open into Bristol Bay, after whatever length of time nature provides, go out to sea, and then, when they return to Britosl Bay to spawn, after the 2-year period, or whatever it may be, some of them go first on the east side of the Alaska Peninsula at least as far as the Shumagin Islands. The reason for that no man knows. They first go on the east side of Alaska Peninsula en route to Bristol Bay, and they have been caught there swimming back southwesterly and going through Unimak Pass, or some other pass. Thence they go into Bering Sea, and swim along the northwest side of Alaska Peninsula to Bristol Bay, and so on into the lakes and some of the numerous rivers that open into Bristol Bay, and there spawn and, after spawning, die. And if the Bristol Bay salmon fishery should be exhausted by overfishing, either within or without the so-called 3-mile limit, that very exhaustion would seriously deplete the fishery on the east side of the Alaska Peninsula, and particularly around the Shumagin Islands.

Mr. SIROVICH. And is this the route of the red salmon only, or of the pink, yellow, and others, too?

Mr. DIMOND. So far as I know, it is the route of the red salmon only, but there are experts here, men who have spent a good many years in studying the Bristol Bay fishery, who may be able to give a categorical and definite answer to that question.

In one important life habit the salmon are distinguishable from many other kinds of fish, such as mackerel, cod, and herring. The latter never enter fresh water, but salmon are hatched in fresh-water streams and lakes and in those streams, at the end of their life cycle, they naturally die. The life cycle of the salmon varies from 2 to 8

years, according to the species. Salmon eggs are laid in the gravelly bottoms of lakes and rivers. The eggs hatch within the period of 6 weeks to 6 months after they are deposited. Subsequent to hatching, the young salmon remain in the fresh water, again dependent upon species, from a few weeks to 3 years, and then proceed downstream to the ocean and remain in the ocean from 2 to 4 years, once again according to species, and then they invariably return, both male and female, to the streams and lakes in which they were hatched in order that they may deposit their eggs and after that die. Salmon spawn only once and, after spawning, both male and female of the species die in the same rivers and lakes in which they were hatched. estimated that a spawning salmon will deposit approximately 3,000 eggs. Nature thus makes ample provision for reproduction.

Many natural enemies attack the salmon. The sea gulls eat the spawn and the newly hatched fish. The trout and other small fish in the streams where the eggs are deposited do the same thing. The return of the salmon to the spawning grounds is invariably made during the summer season. In Bering Sea the salmon enter the rivers during the months of June, July, and August, although a few may be earlier or later; but salmon are observed off the coast in Bristol Bay and Bering Sea long before they enter the inland waters. For some years past, the commercial salmon fishing season in Bristol Bay has been substantially limited by regulations to the period between June 25 and July 25 of each year, a period of 30 days.

Here, Mr. Chairman, I want to say there are also closed periods during that 30-day period, which will be explained by the Commissioner of Fisheries, or whoever may testify here on behalf of the Bureau of Fisheries; so that there is not, in reality, an uninterrupted period of 30 days at the present time during which salmon may be caught in the Bristol Bay district.

Mr. SIROVICH. Has that been shortened during the last 3 or 4 years?

Mr. DIMOND. No; it has not been shortened during the last 3 or 4 years, that I know of; but either Mr. Bell or Mr. Bower, who are here, can give you definite information upon that.

At sea the salmon are subject to the depredations of the larger species of fish. In addition to these destructive forces, when the salmon return to spawn at the end of the period of their life in the ocean, the most destructive force of all, man, takes his toll, a toll so great that, unless care is exercised, the species is likely to be entirely exhausted. This has happened in many rivers, both in the United States and Europe, in which salmon were formerly plentiful, and in those rivers the salmon have either completely disappeared or are now so few in number as to be commercially negligible.

Realizing the vast economic value of maintaining such a resource, the United States Government has for many years past, through protective laws and regulations and the rigid enforcement thereof, conserved and protected the salmon fishery, and, in fact, saved it from extinction. The Government has done more than that; it has tried to maintain the full, natural supply so that in most of the salmon fishing regions in Alaska, and particularly in the Bristol Bay district, we can fairly say that there are as many salmon today as there were before the salmon-packing industry was established. Under the laws and regulations mentioned, the taking of salmon has been limited,

both as to time and season and as to the comparative number that may be taken of the run destined for any particular stream or lake. During the last 10 years the United States Government has spent approximately 31⁄2 millions of dollars in salmon conservation work for Alaska, and it is certain that were it not for such conservation laws and regulations and the strict enforcement thereof few, if any, salmon would not remain in the waters of Alaska.

Salmon are usually caught in the waters of the seas and bays near the mouths of the streams in which they spawn or which they must ascend to spawn. As a consequence, all along the cost of Alaska where salmon are found, canneries have been erected on the bays and inlets and harbors and near the mouths of the principal salmon rivers. Twenty-six salmon canneries are located in Bristol Bay alone and an equal, if not greater, number on the east side of the Alaska Peninsula. During the year 1937, 111 salmon-packing plants were operated in Alaska, not including the Japanese floating canneries hereinafter referred to. In addition to those operated, there are approximately 67 salmon canneries in Alaska which were not operated during 1937, many of which have fallen into a state of disrepair and probably will never again be used.

Before proceeding further, it may be well to describe the physical characteristics of Bristol Bay and of Bering Sea. Bristol Bay, as you will observe from an inspection of the map, is about 350 miles. wide at its mouth from Cape Sarichef on the northwest point of Unimak Islands northerly to Cape Mohican, which is the northwest point of Nunivak Island and about the same distance, 350 miles, from east to west. The entire bay is shallow, most of the water thereof being less than 30 fathoms deep. Bering Sea, as you will again observe, is a considerable body of water extending nearly 1,000 miles northerly from the Aleutian Islands to Bering Strait and approximately 1,400 miles at its greatest width from Bristol Bay to Kamchatka, a peninsula extending from the eastern coast of Siberia. Roughly, the sea is triangular in shape. It is bounded on the south by the Aleutian and Komandorski Islands and, at the north, Siberia and Alaska approach each other so closely that between them, in Bering Strait, the distance is only 55 statute miles.

Mr. Chairman, I have here a map which will show Bering Sea pretty well. At the extreme upper end of the map is Bering Strait which, as I observed a moment ago, is only 55 miles wide. Here [indicating] at the southern end of Bering Sea, are the Aleutian Islands which stretch out and go to within 700 miles of the northern end of the Japanese Archipelago. It is about 2,000 miles, easterly and westerly, across the Bering Sea from Bristol Bay to the northerly islands of Japanese Archipelago.

You will observe a blue line on this map. That blue line shows the edge of the continental shelf. In other words, the waters northeast and easterly of the line marked on the map are very shallow waters; whereas southerly and westerly of the line, the water is quite deep. Right close to the southwest line the figures indicate 1,787 fathoms and 2,018 fathoms, as the depth of the water.

From a

In depth of water, Bering Sea presents two distinct areas. line drawn roughly northwesterly from Cape Sarichef, on Unimak Islands, to Cape Navarin, Siberia, which is just below the Gulf of Anadir, there is to the north and northeast very shallow water, at

no place exceeding in depth 100 fathoms; while to the south and southwest of the line mentioned, the water breaks off into the deep of the Pacific where frequently a depth of 2,000 fathoms, or 12,000 feet, is found. The line just described follows what is commonly known as the continental shelf and the break between the shallow water of northern and northeastern Bering Sea, including Bristol Bay, and the deep water of southern and southwestern Bering Sea is extremely sharp. That line of the continental shelf is indicated on the map which you see before you. So it is clear that if the bed of Bering Sea could all be elevated a distance equal to the height of Washington Monument in this city, 555 feet, Alaska and Siberia would be connected by a land bridge 600 miles broad, even excluding the equally shallow water of the Arctic Ocean, immediately north of Bering Strait.

No one knows precisely the reason of the physical characteristics of Bering Sea mentioned; that is to say, the very shallow northerly portion and the extremely deep southerly portion thereof. But one thing is clear and that is that the bed of the northerly part of Bering Sea and Bristol Bay has been considerably filled in by the vast quantities of silt brought down and deposited in Bering Sea and Bristol Bay by the Yukon, Kuskokwim, Nushagak, Wood, and Knichak Rivers, so that Bristol Bay and a part of Bering Sea are covered to great depth with soil formerly a part of the upland of the Territory of Alaska.

The physical characteristics of Bering Sea and Bristol Bay have an important relation to the matter which is here being presented, because the shallow continental shelf of these waters, even as far west as the boundary between the United States and Russia, as delimited in the Treaty of Cession, acts in effect as a submarine bridge over which the Alaska salmon pass, and over which they are compelled to pass in order to return to the rivers and lakes of Alaksa in which they were hatched, and while on this bridge, returning to our own inland lakes and waters, it is possible to catch and take the salmon with devastating effect. It is possible to erect upon this submarine bridge, barriers which will effectually prevent the salmon; in fact, prevent any of them if the operations are extensive enough, from reaching the waters of Alaska. When approaching the shore, the salmon travel in schools or great bodies, almost analogous to the flow of ocean currents. They are dispersed all over the deep ocean, but when approaching land and fresh water is encountered, they travel together and through some instinct are kept together, just as the waters of a river are confined within its banks, and so it is not a difficult matter to build in the shallow waters of the continental shelf of Bering Sea an all but interminable fence in the paths of these great salmon runs, so that few, if any, will escape and thus be able to get back to the rivers and lakes of Alaska in which they were spawned and hatched.

Mr. SIROVICH. The salmon go out for a period of from 2 to 4 years, after they are spawned and hatched; how far out in the Bering Sea do they go?

Mr. DIMOND. Nobody knows. They certainly go beyond the shallow continental shelf. I say "they certainly go"; so far as I know, they go beyond the continental shelf and go out into the deep

ocean.

Mr. SIROVICH. Have ever any of them been caught around the Siberian border, or the Japanese border?