 On 14 June 1906, however, the United States Congress passed the Alien Fisheries Act to protect and regulate fisheries in the Alaska Territory by placing restrictions on the use of fishing tackle and on cannery operations in the territory and authorizing the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to enforce the regulations.The Bureau established regional districts throughout Alaska to organize fishery and marine mammal protection patrols but had no vessels suitable for fishery 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.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.