The First Years:
1871-1896
When the U.S. Fish Commission began, America's primary fishing areas were
situated off the east coast and in parts of the Great Lakes. The great
fisheries of the Pacific coast states and the Territory of Alaska were
virtually unmapped and untapped, and most major U.S. southeast and Gulf of
Mexico fisheries were awaiting exploration and study by Fish Commission
scientists.
Baird quickly organized the Commission's work into three categories:
Systematic studies of U.S. waters and fishes and their biological and
physical problems,
Studies of past and present fishing methods and compilation of fish catch and
trade statistics, and
The introduction and propagation of "useful food-fishes" throughout the
Nation.
The first part comprised the Commission's pioneering biological, ecological,
and oceanographic studies. First pursued off New England and in the Great
Lakes, they would later expand to the Southeast, the Pacific coast, and across
the Pacific into Asian waters.
Studies of fishing methods had more practical aspects. As George
Brown Goode put it in
1880, "Fishery methods and apparatus must be examined and compared with those
of other lands, that the use of those which threaten the destruction of useful
fishes may be discouraged, and that those which are inefficient may be replaced
by others more serviceable." Similar research today is producing better
fishing nets and techniques to harvest only the species wanted and to exclude
and protect creatures like sea turtles and marine mammals.
Likewise, the fish catch and trade statistics generated by Baird had practical
applications—particularly for Congressional reviews of international
treaties or in the imposition of tariffs, and also as marketing guides for the
fishing industry and for educating consumers.
But it was the third element, fish culture and introductions, that quickly
assumed prominence. Congress' initial 1872 fish culture appropriation was
$15,000, three times the amount allotted for the New England and Great Lakes
studies. In addition, its scope was nationwide, and it fostered corollary
research into fish physiology, embryology, diseases, and more.
To cope with the lack of Atlantic salmon eggs, Baird sent prominent fish
culturist Livingston Stone to California in 1872 to search for a source of eggs
of the "quinnat" or chinook salmon which was renowned for its great size and
abundance. Stone soon built the first Federal fish cultural station on
California's McCloud River from which salmon eggs were sent not only to the
east and Gulf coasts but also around the world.
By 1880, the Commission's fish culture work was famous worldwide. At the
International Exhibition in Berlin that year, the first-honor prize, a gold
medal from the Emperor of Germany, was awarded to Baird partly to commend the
Commission's exhibit but also to honor him as "the first [premier] fish
culturist in the world."
Thus, the Commission's first few years set a research agenda which, with few
modifications, served it well for over a century. In fact, many of the types
of work started in the Commission's first decade are still fruitfully pursued
in the protection and restoration of the Nation's fisheries.
Woods Hole Lab, 1880's
For the first few years, the Commission conducted marine studies from a series
of summer stations, the first set up by Baird at Woods Hole, Mass. Later
summer stations were set up at Eastport and Portland, Maine; Noank, Conn.;
Salem and Gloucester, Mass.; Newport, R.I.; and other east coast and Great
Lakes sites.
Growth and change for the Commission accelerated in the 1880’s. To
pursue the Nation’s high-seas fishery and oceanographic studies, Baird
also needed a large, specialized research vessel. Thus, he inaugurated
construction of the Albatross, a new state-of-the-art research vessel,
launched in 1882, whose pioneering studies over the coming decades would open
up new fisheries on both coasts and truly globalize U.S. biological and
oceanographic research.
Further growth in the Commission’s work also required a permanent
research facility. Thus, the Fish Commission's new Woods Hole Laboratory,
completed in 1885, became the first U.S. marine science station and the second
such in the world after Anton Dohrn's famous research station at Naples, Italy.
Initially, the Woods Hole Laboratory was a combination research station and cod
hatchery.
Finally, in 1887, a great era in American science came to an end when
Commissioner Baird died at the Woods Hole Laboratory on August 19th. He was
succeeded temporarily by his assistant, George Brown Goode, and a few months
later, permanently by noted fish culturist Marshall McDonald, the first
full-time, salaried U.S. Fish Commissioner.
As interest grew in Pacific coast fisheries, the Albatross was
dispatched in 1888 to conduct research from California to Alaska, along the
South American coast, and into Asian waters as well. In addition, the
Albatross was indispensable for patrolling and protecting fur seal herds
in the North Pacific.
An immense and pioneering work on the nutritional values of fish—another
field in which the Commission and its successor agencies became deeply
involved—was published in 1888 by W. O. Atwater. Also that year, the Fish
Commission was fully separated from the Smithsonian Institution. G. B.
Goode had set
up four formal divisions: Administration, Scientific Inquiry, Fish Culture,
and Statistical Inquiry, and the latter was soon renamed the “Division of
Fisheries,” working on fishery methods and, later, on fish technology and
marketing. Still, the agency's overall administrative framework would last
almost unchanged for nearly 60 years, adding only an Alaska Division in 1911
and a Law Enforcement Division in 1930.
Much early Commission work was devoted to exploring the Nation's virtually
untapped fisheries. This ranged from experimental fishing to helping develop
new or improved fishing gear and techniques, perfecting new ways of preserving,
packaging, and marketing fishery products, and developing new fish cooking
techniques—particularly for the new species being brought to market.
Meanwhile, researchers studied various pollution problems. This ranged from
helping fish processors properly dispose of fish wastes to studying the effects
of industrial wastes and pesticides on aquatic organisms, and more.
In the 1890's, Livingston Stone, who had ranged the Pacific coast seeking the
best sites for salmon culture, grew disillusioned about the prospects for the
yet abundant Pacific salmon. Fearing they would go the way of the buffalo, he
had proposed in 1889 a "National Salmon Park" for Alaska, and, on the basis of
his recommendation, part of Alaska's Afognak Island was set aside as a "Forest
and Fish Cultural Reserve" in 1892. Later, in 1896, Congress moved to regulate
Alaska salmon fishing with net restrictions, closed seasons, spawning
escapement requirements, etc.
Concerns also mounted in the 1890's for the future of the northern fur seal.
In 1893, the Fish Commission was given responsibility for fur seal research,
and the Albatross patrolled the Pribilofs and the high seas to ward off
poachers.
Unfortunately, the Albatross was just one vessel in a vast northern
sea, and law enforcement remained a problem.
