ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

FISH CULTURIST

Hon. THOMAS H. Guy, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Fish and Game:

SIR. The report upon the fish cultural work of the Conservation Commission for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1913, is herewith presented.

With this account are included reports from the foremen of the nine hatcheries operated during the year, the results of inspection trips to inquire into the condition of the stations, the methods in use in hatching and caring for the fish, the habits, diseases, mode of capture, improvements in the routine of developing eggs and fish and such others matters as make for the increased efficiency of the service.

The stations have distributed the unusual number of 1,287,255,120 fish, and related food species, during the year. This shows an increase of 556,820,187 over the output of the preceding year, and is due very largely to the enormous gain in hatching and planting marine food fishes.

Among the 39 species of water animals, chiefly fish, which were propagated and planted by the Commission in 1913, are included shad, river herring, whitefish, lake herring, tullibee, four species of trout, smelt, maskalonge, pikeperch, black bass, sea bass, tomcod, flatfish, lobster and edible crab. The establishment of the two auxiliary hatcheries at Montauk and Cold Spring Harbor has greatly augmented the yield of the Long Island station, and if a number of additional field stations could be added, the gain. would be still more pronounced.

There are now at the stations the following brood fish: Adirondack hatchery, 270 brook trout; Caledonia hatchery, 37,500 brown and rainbow trout of various ages from 9 months to 8 years; Cold Spring Harbor hatchery, 1,200 brook trout, 100 brown

trout, 3,000 rainbow trout; Delaware hatchery, 4,950 brook trout, ranging from fingerlings to 3 years old; Linlithgo, 120 black bass, 50 calico bass.

The money value of the fish distributed in 1913 was at least $250,000, not including the brood stock.

The experiment in propagating short-nosed sturgeon in ponds at Linlithgo will be discontinued, owing to the fact that, although the fish evidently spawn in the ponds, no fry have yet been discovered. It is probable that the sturgeon matures only a few eggs at a time, and that the fry, if any develop, are destroyed by other inhabitants of the pond which it is impossible to exclude. There is no difficulty whatever in keeping the sturgeon alive, and in good condition; but the only feasible method of obtaining eggs and milt is so cruelly destructive as to be without warrant in practical fish culture.

The rearing of shad in ponds has been remarkably successful. In a pond of less than one-fifth of an acre in area the foreman of the Linlithgo station raised 500,000 fingerlings in the summer of 1913. Many of the shad when liberated measured 4 inches in length, and the only dead shad found in the pond were about a dozen which were stabbed and killed by the giant waterbug, Belostoma americanum. The cost of food for the number of shad fingerlings mentioned was scarcely more than $20. The food consisted chiefly of water meal.

During the fiscal year, construction work was begun at the new station at Ogdensburg, N. Y., and preliminary surveys and examinations were made for the proposed hatchery in Warren county.

Experience at the two stations which propagate the smallmouthed black bass demonstrates that it is very difficult to rear the fry to fingerling age without serious losses and with uncertain results as to the annual yield. The bass, very early in life, show a partiality for moving natural food, such as insect larvae and small fish. It is sometimes almost impossible to provide this food in sufficient quantities to insure a rapid growth. At the Linlithgo station there is an abundance of fly larvae which the bass take freely, and we rear river alewives and buckeye shiners (Notropis atherinoides, Raf.) in very large quantities, usually

sufficient to bring the bass to a proper size for distribution as fingerlings. The fingerling bass at Linlithgo will also feed upon thin strips of white-meated fish, usually suckers from which the scales have been removed. In spite of all efforts the percentage of bass carried from the fry stage to fingerling age is always small, and serious losses occur during the season on account of bass enemies, low water, and excessive growth of algae.

Occasionally, as will be seen from the statements given by Foreman Miller and his predecessor at the Oneida station, young bass disappear from a rearing pond very mysteriously. At one time a fine lot of bass were placed in a small pond near the hatchery at Constantia, and nearly all of them were missed suddenly. When the pond was emptied it was found that worms and crawfish had bored through the ground from Frederick creek into the bass ponds, making small tunnels through which the fish escaped.

The later work of fish distribution was very greatly hampered for the want of the fish car Adirondack which was broken down in mid-summer and sent to the shops for repairs. These necessary changes were so extensive that it was impossible to make them before the season closed.

Our State, and this is true of practically all the east coast States having shell fisheries, has done nothing in the way of experiments in the artificial culture of oysters and other shellfish. The United States Bureau of Fisheries has investigated the artificial culture of oysters during many seasons, and has now developed methods which are successful from a scientific point of view, but which are not yet capable of adoption for commercial advantage. It is to be hoped that this matter, so important to our Commonwealth, will soon receive the consideration which it merits.