History
When early pioneers began migrating to the western United States, there were no catch limits on fish and no laws preventing people from modifying fish habitats to meet human needs for water, food, and safety. As settlement progressed, abundant fish populations began to decline. By 1870, growing concern for such declines prompted fishery studies, which spurred the establishment of fish spawning stations for collecting and hatching fish eggs and stocking small fish back into waters with declining fisheries. Many of these early spawning stations later became fish hatcheries, marking the beginning of the Fisheries Program and the NFHS.
President Ulysses S. Grant is chiefly responsible for the first official government action to conserve U.S. fishery resources for future generations. President Grant established the U.S. Fish Commission in 1871. The Commission was the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Fisheries Program.
In 1872, the first Federal fish hatchery, known as the Baird Hatcher, was established on the McCloud River in California. The NFHS has since grown into a large complex system devoted to conserving U.S. fishery resources.
Originally Spencer Fullerton Baird was chosen by President Ulysses S. Grant to manage the fisheries in the country. He was named "Commissoner of Fish and Fisheries". In 1871 Baird took office but his work was still in effect. The people were now understandin the importance of the fisheries, for sport and food. With much pressure from organizations such as; American Fish Cultural Association and American Fisheries Society, Congress reserved $15,000 for the fisheries.
The man that was chosen to essentially take Baird's position was Livingston Stone. With a group of scientists his job was to find the location of salmon spawning areas and develop a salmon hatchery so that the eggs could be managed and shipped around the country so that the salmon could be available for all. Stone and his team located this area and started shipping eggs as soon as possible. A few miles from where they had originally found the salmon eggs, rainbow trout eggs were also found. Now rainbow trout eggs and salmon eggs were being shipped across the world. Essentially every rainbow trout's native water is northern California. The Baird Hatchery was formed from Stone and today the hatchery still manages fish as they did back in the 1800s.
Read more about this topic: National Fish Hatchery System
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)