of a national park have taken advantage of the opportunity to hunt and fish, and to trap for fur within the park boundary. Unfortunately, we know that some of these law violators have not been apprehended.

The number of visitors to the parks has decreased. Fortunately, some relatively small areas that have been badly overused in the past and have shown the effects of overuse, have had opportunity to rehabilitate themselves.

I think another bad effect of the war has been the loss of key personnel, either through loss to the military forces or to other war work. A number of these men had been engaged in making studies of important wildlife resources, and maintained up-to-date information on the progress that they were making towards recovery. Therefore, in a number of cases, we are without information as to what we should do to restore or protect certain species, or perhaps even control the numbers of some of other species.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know whether or not the Park Service has requested the normal appropriation for the budget year that commences July 1, 1945?

Mr. CAHALANE. No, sir; I am sorry, I cannot answer that. I have been out in the West for more than a month, and have just returned this week end. During that time the budget hearings were held, and I had so little time in the office on my way through to Washington that I did not have a chance to bring myself up to date on that matter.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your opinion about the appropriation that should be made for the National Park Service for that budget year?

Mr. CAHALANE. The appropriation should be increased in order to plan and provide for the big influx of people that we are sure are going to visit the parks at the conclusion of the war. The indications are that people are going to be tired of staying at home. They have worked so hard and such long hours that they are going to demand a release and a change of scene. We believe that a great many of them are coming to the national parks, and that a number of them are going to stay some time. They are going to get out-I personally think that a good many of them are going to get out away from the roads, too, and get some solitude.

The CHAIRMAN. Would not next year be a good time to get some fish into these streams in parks that are close to the big eastern centers? Mr. CAHALANE. Yes, sir; it would, and we are making arrangements with the Fish and Wildlife Service to supply proper fish in the national parks, and for your State of Virginia, a fish supply for Shenandoah.

The fishing in those two parks, we know, has continued to be heavy. The fishing in the Smokies, for example, has not decreased nearly as much as has the general run of visitors to the parks. Fishermen seem to keep up their activities in wartime.

The CHAIRMAN. If you planted trout in streams of the parks in the East, in the spring of 1945, would they be there in the spring of 1946? Mr. CAHALANE. Yes, sir; I think the majority of them would.

The CHAIRMAN. You are satisfied that neither illegal fishermen nor predatory animals would get them out?

Mr. CAHALANE. I think that we could promise that, yes.

We have made studies in Shenandoah that show that the closing of a stream to fishing-we tried it as an experiment in the case of, I

believe, Jeremy's Run and Big Run, a couple of years later resulted in an excellent, fine stocking of fish, by natural means. So, if the fish are not too large when they are planted in the spring of 1945, they should be there and provide fine fishing in the summer of 1946.

The CHAIRMAN. The large brook trout do not migrate. The large rainbow may.

Mr. CAHALANE. Yes..

The CHAIRMAN. You understand, of course, that a fly fisherman gets much more enjoyment out of catching a fish that has been in the stream at least a year than he does out of catching a hatchery fish a couple of weeks after he has been taken off the liver diet.

Mr. CAHALANE. No doubt about it.

Mr. HOLMES. Lot of difference in eating quality too.

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly; the hatchery fish is white and flabby and the other fish is pink and firm, and he has twice as much fight in him. But a lot of fish culturists think that you do not get any results that show unless you put the fish in one week and turn the fisherman in the next week.

Mr. CAHALANE. We have had a great deal of trouble at one recreation demonstration area in Pennsylvania where it is believed that three quarters of all the fish that were planted were caught within 5 or 6 hours, by fishermen who followed the fish planting trucks and immediately went to work.

The CHAIRMAN. I would not doubt it.

Mr. CAHALANE. And that is wrong.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Of course it is wrong.

Mr. CAHALANE. We want to find out if the State of Pennsylvania will be agreeable to closing any stocked stream for 5 days following stocking.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, there is no trout of great size in Jeremys Run. It is pretty steep, but it has some very nice pools.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Where is that?

The CHAIRMAN. That is on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah National Park; about 2 miles of the stream is not in the park and the rest is in the park at the top of the mountain. It is a perfectly gorgeous stream. But the last time I was up there it did not seem to have any fish in it.

Mr. CAHALANE. Approximately what time of the year was that? The CHAIRMAN. It was in June.

Mr. CAHALANE. Our problem in managing park waters that are highly accessible to the public has been to determine whether we should plant fish to be caught out immediately, or whether the more naturalistic program should be followed and the catch, for the number of fishermen, regulated, so that the quality of fishing would be maintained even if individual fishermen were limited to fewer fish and perhaps a shorter season.

Under Park Service fish-stocking policy we keep to a minimum the number of fish more than 4 inches long that are planted in park streams. Of course, there are waters where circumstances make it necessary to plant legal-sized fish, and a considerable number of them are stocked in certain areas. It should rarely be necessary to do so in the parks, however. It certainly is not in conformity with general park policy. In this connection I would like to call your attention to a short article on this subject by Dr. Albert S. Hazzard, director of

the Institute for Fisheries Research for the State of Michigan, which appeared in the September-October issue of Outdoor America. The article is entitled, "Wild Trout Fishing Endangered in National Parks."

The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever made any test of how much a trout will grow in a year?

Mr. CAHALANE. Well, of course, it depends on the water, temperature, and food. In places I know that fish will increase 2 to 3 inches in size in a year. Or even in about 3 months. The waters in the national park system vary tremendously. There are the almost sterile waters of the high Sierras, where the amount of fish food is very slight, the water temperature is low, and the fish in places rarely grow to be more than 12 inches in size. Occasionally one grows to be bigger. But they can live out their lives in those waters and not get to be more than about 12 inches long.

We have other waters that are in the optimum temperature range, that are well supplied with food, and where fish grow rapidly to large sizes. The general public does not appreciate that the aquatic environment of a fish is just as important as the land environment is to an elk or a deer, for instance. They do not understand the importance of proper environment, of course, and do not understand why Yosemite, for instance, cannot produce the fishing that Olympic does, or Acadia.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, there are certain fish propagation experts in Virginia-the superintendent of propagation of fish in Virginia, for instance who claim the only practical thing is to grow the fish from 8 to 10 inches long in the hatcheries and then let them catch them in the next week. That kind of fishing has never interested me a bit and as long as you have certain areas like the national parks, where you can really protect a stream, I would like very much to see you try out a plan of restocking a stream one year, and testing it the next year to see what results-to see whether the fish are there, to see how much they have grown, so that we can get some idea on the relative merits of various methods of restocking.

Mr. HOLMES. Do you not have certain times, a certain number of weeks you can fish for trout in Virginia, the same as we have up home? You can only take them within a certain number of weeks.

The CHAIRMAN. We have a right long season that starts on the 20th of April, and it runs to the 1st of August, now, I believe.

Mr. HOLMES. I think ours starts on the 15th of April and I think it only lasts 35 days.

The CHAIRMAN. We have a long season, but-there is always the conflict between the worm fisherman and the fly fisherman. The fly fisherman does not want to start until generally in May, and he complains that by that time the worm fisherman has cleaned the streams out pretty well. Even in a couple of months a fish does not get wild enough to afford any real sport.

Mr. CAHALANE. Yes. Our policy in the national parks is, as far as possible, to provide quality fishing rather than quantity, and fishermen of the higher type have very much appreciated that. We have had some fine letters from anglers in Virginia, northern Virginia, who have wanted us to continue a management practice that we employed several years ago in Shenandoah National Park-of planting smaller

fish in a couple of the streams, letting the fish grow under natural conditions, and then opening those streams for a short season.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, you do not allow any worm fishermen in the Shenandoah National Park and that helps some.

Mr. CAHALANE. Yes; it does.

Mr. HOLMES. But you could plant these streams after the season was closed and then they would have the benefit of that continual growth until the open season again.

Mr. CAHALANE. By closing the season rather early and giving them a little time before winter to become acclimated.

Mr. HOLMES. Yes.

Mr. CAHALANE. I think we are going to have to come to that in many of the national parks, if this influx of visitors and use of the streams increases as much as the experts tell us it is going to after the war. I do not see how we will be able to provide practically unlimited fishing for everybody that wants to come in, especially in the eastern parks, but also in many of the western parks.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, you have about 20,000,000 people within a day's drive of the Shenandoah National Park.

Mr. CAHALANE. And I doubt that there is more than 50 miles of trout stream in the whole park, because each stream is so short. The longer streams can be hardly more than 3 miles long from the headwaters to where they leave the park. How are you going to provide for even the fishing enthusiasts among 20,000,000 people on 50 miles of stream? It is just impossible.

Mr. HOLMES. It is a good thing they do not all go there the same day.

Mr. CAHALANE. Mr. Chairman, what do you think of trying barbless hook fishing in some streams in a few of the parks?

The CHAIRMAN. What would be your idea about that?

Mr. CAHALANE. Well, of making lots of fishing without taking out too many fish. Anyone except an expert would require quite a while to fill his creel.

The CHAIRMAN. It is pretty hard to enforce. It takes pretty sharp eyes to see whether a hook has a barb on it. I expect a few worm cans have been sneaked in without you seeing them.

Mr. CAHALANE. I will admit that.

The CHAIRMAN. I am always reluctant to sponsor any law that I know cannot be enforced. I do know of a number of private owners that have a mile or 2 miles of stream that they restock, and they want to have some sport, but do not want too many fish taken out. When the guests come out, they have a pair of pliers and say, "We will smash down the barbs for you so you will not be bothered in releasing the small fish."

Mr. CAHALANE. Well, you understand that I would not extend that idea to many streams. I just thought of trying it on a few, perhaps one stream in each park.

The CHAIRMAN. I doubt if that would be a wise idea, certainly with fish flies as hard to get as they are now. A man would have to

mash down all his flies for one stream and then he could not use them to good advantage in some other stream when he really wanted to catch the few fish he hooked.

Mr. CAHALANE. Surely.

The CHAIRMAN. Does that complete your testimony?

Mr. CAHALANE. It does.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, are there any further questions?
Mr. HOLMES. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you for giving us this interesting report.

Gentlemen of the committee, this concludes the witnesses that have been scheduled to appear before us. There are some State game departments that have not yet returned to us a report on their activities and their post-war plans as we requested.

A motion would be in order to instruct the chairman to receive those reports and include them in the hearings, if they are received before the hearings go to the printer. And to also include at this point letters and resolutions received from the Western Association of State Game and Fish Commissioners, and the Council of State Governments.

Mr. CHAPMAN. I will make the motion.

Mr. HOLMES. Second it.

The CHAIRMAN. Moved and seconded that the chairman receive and file those reports for inclusion in our printed hearings. (Carried.)

(The material above referred to is as follows:)

STATE REPORTS

ALABAMA

Hon. A. WILLIS ROBERTSON,

DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION,
DIVISION OF GAME, FISH AND SEAFOODS,

Montgomery, December 4, 1944.

Chairman of Select Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Reference is made to your memorandum of November 16 to all State game and fish departments concerning work being undertaken in game and fish work, especially those where Pittman-Robertson funds are being used.

of

We have in operation, at the present time, 10 Federal-aid projects with a total approximately $52,935 involved. Of course, only three-fourths of this money is made available to the State through the Pittman-Robertson Act. Three of these projects are research; 5 are developmental; 1 land acquisition, and 1 wildlife management coordination. Some of the funds that we are spending at the present time are those that were made available 2 years ago, but we anticipate a shortage of Federal-aid funds during 1945 if our 1945 apportionment is not larger than it was for the year of 1944.

We are planning for the near future an additional land acquisition project and a State-wide wild-turkey-restocking project which will entail a considerable amount of money. The more money that will be available the more counties we shall be able to include in this turkey-habitat-development project.

For post-war plans, we have a tentative outline for 14 developmental projects which will entail the purchase of considerable land. We have also made plans for starting additional research projects as soon as trained men are available. These plans include the land-acquisition project, and will call for funds which will amount to at least $1,000,000 as the Pittman-Robertson Act's share. Of course, we do not expect to get a million dollars, but this is a long-time program and we feel that we have made our plans well in advance so that any amount of funds made available by Congress through this act will be well spent.

Respectfully yours,

GEORGE C. MOORE,

Coordinator, Pittman-Robertson Projects.