Alaska
After the United States purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire in 1867 and created the Department of Alaska (which became the District of Alaska in 1884 and the Territory of Alaska in 1912), enforcement of whatever regulations to protect fisheries and marine mammals that existed in Alaska fell to the revenue cutters of the United States Revenue-Marine, which in 1894 became the United States Revenue Cutter Service and was one of the ancestor organizations of the United States Coast Guard. [28] By order of the United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor on February 15, 1905, the Bureau of Fisheries received the responsibility for administering and enforcing laws protecting the Alaskan salmon fishery. [4] [29] On June 14, 1906, the U.S. Congress passed the Alien Fisheries Act to protect and regulate fisheries in Alaska by placing restrictions on the use of fishing tackle and on cannery operations there and authorizing the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to enforce these regulations as well. [4] [28] In 1920, the Bureau's Alaska responsibilities expanded again, to include supervision of the conservation of marine mammals there, including sea otters, fur seals, and walruses. [4]
Upon receiving its law enforcement responsibilities in 1905–1906, the Bureau established regional districts throughout Alaska to organize fishery protection patrols along Alaska's 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of coastline, but had no vessels suitable for such patrols in Alaska, and during the next few years relied on vessels borrowed from other United States government agencies (such as the Revenue Cutter Service), on chartered vessels, and on transportation that canneries offered for free to Bureau of Fisheries agents. [28] [29] This approach was not satisfactory for various reasons, such as the requirement for vessels of other government agencies to perform non-fishery-related functions, ethical concerns over accepting transportation from the canneries the Bureau of Fisheries agents were supposed to regulate, and the difficulty of enforcing regulations when the local fishing and canning industry personnel warned one another of the approach of Bureau of Fisheries agents who had accepted transportation on cannery vessels. [28] Each year after the 1906 passage of the Alien Fisheries Act, the Bureau of Fisheries requested more personnel and vessels with which to fulfill its regulatory and law enforcement responsibilities. [28] By 1911, when the Alaska fishing industry reached an annual value of nearly US$17 million, [30] it had become clear that the United States Government needed to make radical changes in how it enforced the provisions of the Alien Fisheries Act, including funding the acquisition of a fleet of dedicated fishery patrol vessels under the Bureau of Fisheries. [28]
In 1912, the Bureau purchased the former cannery tender SS Wigwam to serve as its first fishery patrol vessel; renamed USFS Osprey [28] [30] —beginning a custom of naming the boats after birds common in Alaska [28] —she was commissioned in 1913 [30] and quickly added the protection of fur seal and sea otter populations to her responsibilities. [30] The Bureau's first two purpose-built patrol vessels, USFS Auklet and USFS Murre, joined her in 1917. [31] The Alaska enforcement fleet increased further in 1919 with four former United States Navy patrol vessels (USFS Kittiwake, USFS Merganser, USFS Petrel, and USFS Widgeon) transferred to the Bureau's Alaska fleet, [32] [33] [34] and in 1925 the Bureau established a district headquarters at the Naknek River for the Bristol Bay district and began to acquire a flotilla of motor launches to operate on the rivers, steams, and lakes in that area. [28] The Bureau also chartered vessels to support Alaska fisheries protection, [28] and Bureau patrol boats regularly protected migrating fur seal herds along the coast of Washington and Alaska. [28] On October 25, 1928, several Bureau of Fisheries vessels were tasked to join U.S. Navy vessels in enforcing the provisions of the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1924 in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean, with their crews granted all powers of search and seizure in accordance with the act to protect populations of Pacific halibut. [28] By 1930 the Bureau had nearly 20 boats patrolling in Alaskan waters. [28] In 1933, it began to add speedboats to its Alaskan patrol inventory. [28]
In 1918, the Bureau of Fisheries augmented its fishery enforcement effort with a force of "steam watchmen", temporary employees who worked two to five months a year and kept a particular area under continuous observation; they also occasionally maintained lights and protected free-floating fish traps from drift. [35] The stream watchmen sometimes provided their own motorboats. [35] From an initial force of 10 men in 1918, the stream watchman force—which operated in both Southeast and Southcentral Alaska—grew to 59 men in 1922 and 220 in 1931. [35] In addition to stream watchmen, the Bureau also employed special wardens and operators of chartered boats to enforce fishery regulations. [35]
The Bureau of Fisheries also began to use aircraft for fishery patrols in 1929, chartering a seaplane from Alaska-Washington Airways to experiment with aerial patrols over Alaskan waters. [36] The aerial patrols were successful, and regular aerial patrols by Bureau of Fisheries agents using chartered aircraft began in 1930. [36] The patrols focused on Southeast Alaska, [36] and by 1939 logged an annual total of 6,859 miles (11,038 km) in 64 hours of flying. [36]
The fishery enforcement vessels and aircraft also provided transportation to Bureau of Fisheries personnel and assisted in the Bureau's scientific activities in Alaska. [28] [36] In 1940, the Fish and Wildlife Service took over the fleet of patrol boats and the aerial patrol mission, and continued fishery enforcement operations, including the use of stream watchmen, wardens, and chartered boat operators. When Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959, it began to assume the responsibility for fishery protection in its waters like any other U.S. state. [28] [36] The Fish and Wildlife Service's role in fishery enforcement in Alaska came to an end on December 31, 1959; [37] on January 1, 1960, the State of Alaska assumed full responsibility for fishery protection in its waters. [29] The Fish and Wildlife Service transferred many of its patrol boats to the State of Alaska and refocused its resources on its scientific mission. [28]