Parley P. Pratt visited Fort Utah in June 1849 and saw thousands of fish being caught by settlers and Timpanogots. He estimated that 5000 barrels of fish could be secured annually from the fishery. The winter of 1885–1886 caused much of the livestock to die. Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints elders sent members in the Salt Lake Valley to Utah Lake to obtain fish; an estimated of fish were brought back. The first commercial fishery also started the same year. At the 1870 General Conference of the LDS Church, a committee was appointed to develop fish culture because of the declining fish harvest in Utah Lake. By 1904, it became illegal to commercially catch any fish except for non-native species.