FISH-CULTURAL STATION IN OKLAHOMA.

APRIL 5, 1912.--Ordered to be printed.

Mr. JONES, from the Committee on Fisheries, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany S. 457.]

The Committee on Fisheries, having had under consideration the bill (S. 457) to establish a fish-cultural station in the State of Oklahoma, recommend the following amendment:

Provided, That before any final steps shall have been taken for the construction of a fish-cultural station in accordance with this bill, the State of Oklahoma, through appropriate legislative action, shall accord to the United States Commissioner of Fisheries and his duly authorized agents the right to conduct fish hatching and all operations connected therewith in any manner and at any time that may by them be considered necessary and proper, any fishery laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding: And provided further, That the operations of said hatchery may be suspended by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor whenever, in his judgment, the laws and regulations affecting the fishes cultivated are allowed to remain so inadequate as to impair the efficiency of said hatchery.

And that as so amended the bill do pass.

The reasons for the above amendment recommended by the department are set forth in the annual reports of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor and the Commissioner of Fisheries, and this amendment also was approved by the Senate Committee on Fisheries in Report No. 922, Sixty-first Congress, third session.

The following extract from the report of the Commissioner of Fisheries for 1911 gives the principal reasons for this amendment:

OBSTRUCTIVE ATTITUDE OF STATES.

The absence of adequate protective fishery laws in some States, lax enforcement of laws in others, and a definite policy of some of the States to limit the bureau's field of operations greatly retard and curtail its activities. Some of the untoward influences have already been noted, and others may be referred to.

In Nevada the State board of fish commissioners reluctantly grants the bureau permission to conduct fish-cultural operations in the Truckee River and then only on condition that an unreasonably large percentage of the eggs collected be turned over to the State hatchery. This unfriendly attitude and lack of cooperation is maintained notwithstanding the fact that the bureau was invited by public men and interested citizens of the State to take up this particular work and is now being urged to assist in the preservation of the fishes of that river, which are in danger of complete extermination through the absence of protective laws.

On the upper Mississippi River rescue operations are being conducted by authority of permits issued by the several States bordering thereon. The State of Michigan, which has not for years engaged in the cultivation of commercial fishes, has enacted laws directly antagonistic to the bureau's work, although no other State has profited more from the fish-cultural activities of the Government. The present fish law, passed over the bureau's protest and serving no useful purpose so far as fish are concerned, not only stipulates that the Government's operations shall be supervised by the State fish and game warden's department, but that all eggs must be taken and fertilized by fishermen licensed by that department, thus placing the work in the hands of inexperienced men. It also prohibits the shipment beyond the boundaries of that State of fish or eggs secured from Michigan waters, but does not prohibit Michigan's reception of eggs or fish from other States. Under these circumstances there has been a steady decline in the output of the bureau's Michigan stations.

It is hardly necessary to refer again to the steady decline during recent years in the shad fisheries of the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers, due primarily to the failure of Virginia and Maryland to enact laws to insure the ascent of fish to their spawning grounds. At the present time the bureau is laboring under great difficulties in its efforts to increase the supply of shad in the Chesapeake region, and util it can secure the cooperation of the responsible States through the enactment and enforcement of adequate fishery laws, the widsom of further expenditure of time and money in this direction is seriously doubted.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

RELATIONS WITH THE STATES.

In its fish-cultural work in the various States the bureau has no interests or purposes that are foreign to those of the States. In fact, all its operations are necessarily for the immediate benefit of the citizens of the States, and there should be the closest cooperation between the Federal and State authorities. Congress has imposed certain duties on the Bureau of Fisheries, and the fulfillment of those duties can best be achieved by the active support of the States.

Most of the States fully appreciate the necessity for cooperation and act accordingly. Some, however, are pursuing a course which results in the practical annulment of all the fish-cultural efforts of the Federal Government and of local agencies, through failure to enact and enforce legislation the nature of which and the necessity for which are often most obvious, while other States that are and long have been large recipients of the Government's bounty have enacted laws or adopted regulations that have the effect, if they do not have the object, of handicapping and of making more expensive, and therefore less extensive, the fish-cultural operations evidently contemplated by Congress and determined on by the bureau after full consideration.

In previous years attention has been called to these matters, and the present report makes mention of some current phases of the subject. Under the circumstances that exist the bureau has reason to feel that it is incumbent on the States, if they desire Government aid in the maintenance and improvement of their fisheries, to manifest it unmistakably by the repeal of inimical measures and by the enactment of proper legislation; to show some regard for the bureau's recommendation in respect to laws which affect its operations; and at least to refrain from legislative and regulative acts that serve only to retard and embarrass.

The bureau has advocated and the Secretary has been pleased to recommend to Congress that all bills for the establishment of fish hatcheries in States contain the proviso that before any final steps shall have been taken for the construction of fishcultural stations the State, through appropriate legislative action, shall accord to the United States Commissioner of Fisheries and his duly authorized agents the right to conduct fish hatching and all operations connected therewith in any manner and at any time that may be considered by them necessary and proper, any fishery laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Secretary has likewise accepted and has incorporated in communications to Congress the bureau's suggestion that the operations of any hatcheries should be suspended by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor whenever, in his judgment, the laws and regulations affecting the fishes cultivated are allowed to remain so inadequate as to impair the efficiency of said hatcheries. Both of these provisions were approved by the Senate Committee on Fisheries.

In the interest of closer relations with the States in this important work it is recommended that the foregoing provisions be adhered to and that every effort be made to have them enacted into law.

BRIDGE ACROSS MISSOURI RIVER, YANKTON, S. DAK.

APRIL 5, 1912.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. NELSON, from the Committee on Commerce, submitted the

following

REPORT.

[To accompany S. 5883.]

The Committee on Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (S. 5883) to extend the time for the completion of a bridge across the Missouri River at Yankton, S. Dak., by the Yankton, Norfolk & Southern Railway Co., having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass with an amendment.

The bill has the approval of the War Department, as will appear by the following communication from that department favoring passage of this bill with certain amendments which have been duly incorporated.

[Second indorsement.]

WAR DEPARTMENT,
OFFICE OF CHIEF OF ENGINEERS,
Washington, March 30, 1912.

Respectfully returned to the Secretary of War.

The object of the accompanying bill, S. 5883, is to extend the time for commencing and completing construction of a bridge across Missouri River originally authorized by an act approved April 5, 1904.

The original act makes sufficient provision for the protection of navigation interests, but it was passed before the enactment of the general bridge act of March 3, 1906. As all bridge authorizations since that date have been made subject to the provisions of the said general act, I am of the opinion that this bridge should be placed in the same category. To accomplish this, I have indicated certain amendments on the bill, and if thus amended I see no objection to the favorable consideration of the measure by Congress, so far as navigation interests are concerned.

W. H. BIXBY,

Chief of Engineers, United States Army.

[Third indorsement.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, April 2, 1912.

Respectfully returned to the chairman Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, inviting attention to the foregoing report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, and to the accompanying copy of amended bill referred to.