No Salmon for Cats

Black and troubled run the waters of Alaska's Yukon River, as they always do at April's end. Cause of the Yukon's blackness: it is stuffed, crammed, jammed with malacopterygian teleosteans. By tens of thousands they are crowding upstream. Waterfalls as high as 15 ft. cannot stop them; a flirt of their powerful tails puts them over. They plunge under the face of higher falls, seeking a tail-hold for a second leap. As they hurl their sleek, silvery bodies over the falls, it is clear why they are called "salmon." (Latin salmo means "a leaper.") Goal of the jostling, leaping fish is the quiet of the Yukon's upper pools. Swimming stoutly against the current, it will take them all summer to reach the headwaters. On the long trip (2,000 miles) they eat nothing, slowly burning up the fat oil they have amassed in the sea. In the autumn they reach the clear, placid upper reaches of the river. There the males, haggard, savage from starvation, tear each other with fierce beaklike jaws, fighting for mates. The female scoops a nest in the sand, squeezes into it from her abdomen several thousand ripe eggs. Swimming over it, the male fertilizes the eggs. Then both lose interest in their family, for the founding of which they have traveled miles up the river. Covering the eggs with sand both male and female go off and die. Some fortunate few struggle back to the ocean to grow sleek and begin the cycle over again next year.* Many an Alaskan salmon, however, is leaping this April-May not into a waterfall but into round tin cans, neatly sealed and labeled. These round cans, each of them containing one pound of salmon flesh, are filled in 135 canneries in Alaska and in 64 in Washington, Oregon, California. Forty-eight cans are packed in a case. In 1928 the canneries turned out nearly 7,000,000 cases at about $9 per case (circa $60,000,000 worth). In 1927 about 40% less salmon jumped into cans than in 1926 or 1928. This was no surprise to salmon packers, who know that every third or fourth year, for some mysterious reason, the "run" of salmon dwindles sharply. Important are these members of the salmon family: King, or Chinook (Pacific coast, bright, arterial red flesh, averages 22 Ibs.); Red or Sockeye (Alaskan, dark red flesh, 6 Ibs.) ; Coho or Silver (Pacific and Alaskan, light red flesh, 7 Ibs.); Pink or Humpback (Alaskan, pinkish flesh, 4 Ibs.); Chum or Keta (Alaskan, colorless flesh, 8 pounds). For every King, silver or Chum salmon that leaps into a can this spring there will leap (approximately) three Red and four Pink salmon.

"Cat Food" to "King Salmon." Say packers: "Today ... it is once more respectable to be in the packing business." Say advertising men: "Advertising has undoubtedly contributed in a significant way to setting the industry on its feet." Packers of Pink and Chum salmon (about 60% of the total pack) were worried in the spring of 1926. A large run was expected, and they already had 1.500,000 cases left over from the previous year. Moreover, an ignorant tradition led salmon-eaters to prefer Red to Pink. Investigators for the Associated Salmon Packers glumly heard many a housewife declare: "I buy it [cheap pink] only for my cat." Foregathered in solemn conclave, the packers decided to put on a national advertising campaign. They collected $200,000, gave it to advertising men who staged a national campaign hailing PINK salmon "The King of Food Fish," who also started recipe contests-- each recipe to be accompanied by a label from a PINK salmon can. Sixty thousand housewives stopped feeding Pink salmon to their cats, sent in 200,000 recipes, bale on bale of labels. By July 1, the season's left-over cans were reduced to 500,000. This year packers have collected $250,000 to use in further educating the public in the mysteries of Pink (as opposed to Red) salmon. U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries O'Malley officially opened the campaign with a lecture on the Pink salmon, obligingly giving special attention to its eatable qualities. He pointed at what all experienced salmon-eaters know: that no dyed-in-the-wool salmon-devourer will ever be afflicted with "deficiency diseases" (scurvy, beriberi, and goitre) because salmon flesh contains a high percentage of iodine, best prophylactic against such diseases. An orchestra played sea songs and chanteys "to carry to listeners a romantic conception, of the salmon industry." There were no references to cats.

*For generations Scotchmen saw salmon swim up and down their rivers, saw small black-barred fish swim down to the sea every fall, scratched their heads without seeing any connection. One day the Duke of Buccleuch's gamekeeper had a suspicion. He caught some of the small black fish, kept them all winter in a pool, cried "I told you so " when they grew silvery salmon scales in the spring. The mystery was solved for Scotland and the rest of the civilized world. Amerindians and Eskimos had, of course, known the secret since Manitou walked on earth and talked to men.