Salt Water Fisheries of the Pacific Coast [pp. 149-163]

Salt Water Fisheries of the Pacific Coast.
However great this may be, it cannot
reach the magnitude of the injury done
our fisheries by the wholesale capture
of shrimps and little fish carried on by
the Chinese. The shrimps are taken
legally in enormous quantities, even in
spawning time, and dried for export to
China; but with them, whenever they
think they are not watched, large quantities of small fish are taken illegally,
Fish camps of a similar nature at Pescadero, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and
San Diego, are mostly engaged in drying abalones and squid for the Chinese
export trade.
The camps about San Francisco are
given up to shrimp drying, which assumes considerable proportions in spite
of the growing scarcity of their prey.
A Chinese fish camp is unlike other
Photo by E. L. Wood
A CHINESE FISH CAMP.
which should be returned to the water
immediately, under penalty of indictment for misdemeanor. Seven or eight
camps are established at various points
on the Bay, such as Belmont, San Bruno,
Point Richmond, and San Pedro, the latter being the most important, where at
one time in I88o there were I500 men
at work.
At present in this camp, there are 8
junks of 5 men each, 5 boats of 4 men
each, beside io or I2 smaller ones; in all
there are about ioo men, some of whom
are engaged in preparing and packing
the product.
camps, from the fact that it is easily
found in the dark by the sense of smell.
The fishermen do not mind it, for their
olfactory nerves are paralyzed by over
work. The camp is always located on
the edge of the water, near the fishing
grounds, often protected from an invading tax collector at low tide by a wide
stretch of mud. A confused jumble of
rickety shanties are crowding to get a
foothold on the shore, and the smaller
ones have been elbowed off into the mud.
Strewn about are old Chinese baskets,
ducks, filthy boxes, pieces of dirty matting, piles of garbage and decaying fish,
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