CONFERENCE ON SALMON PROBLEMS 



89 



Dr. Harold Thompson, formerly of New- 

 foundland, believes that the salmon fre- 

 quent the offshore slopes to the east and 

 southeast of Newfoundland or possibly fur- 

 ther south. His opinion is based upon the 

 difference in the time of arrival and the local 

 characteristics of the salmon in the several 

 sections of the east coast of Newfoundland. 

 The time of arrival is about two weeks later 

 in Labrador than in southeast Newfound- 

 land. Also there are certain differential 

 characteristics, particularly in the length of 

 the smolt life (river years) between the 

 salmon of the various sections of the east 

 coast of Newfoundland. Dr. Thompson be- 

 lieves that the salmon of these several areas 

 came from special divisions of the slopes 

 off Newfoundland. 



There is no evidence as to the exact ocean 

 habitat of the Gulf of St. Lawrence salmon. 

 It is possible that they may remain entirely 

 within the Gulf, as Dr. Huntsman believes. 

 My personal point of view is that the ma- 

 jority go beyond the confines of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence. 



My interpretation of the 1937 Port-aux- 

 Basques tagging operations is that the sal- 

 mon of this locality probably come from 

 outside and are passing through Cabot 

 Strait. It is possible that they may come 

 to Port-aux-Basques from within the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and then redistribute them- 

 selves or that they may even be in the vicin- 

 ity of Port-aux-Basques and not reach the 

 drift-net fishing area until a particular time. 

 I am convinced that Port-aux-Basques is a 

 way station, and that the salmon do not 

 remain there as they do in the Miramichi 

 drift-net fishing area. There have been only 

 four recaptures of tagged salmon in the 

 Port-aux-Basques drift-net fishing area, all 

 within three days after tagging whereas in 

 the Miramichi drift-net fishery area recap- 

 tures have been evenly distributed over a 

 period of five to six weeks. 



The transitory nature of the Port-aux- 

 Basques salmon and the isolated captures of 

 salmon at all seasons of the year off the 

 coast suggest an ocean habitat beyond the 

 borders of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but no 

 definite evidence is available. We know 



something about their onshore movements 

 withn the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The fish 

 first appear at Port-aux-Basques shortly 

 after the first of May, about three weeks 

 earlier than their arrival on the western 

 shores of the Gulf. 



No information indicating that there is an 

 oceanic mixture of the European salmon and 

 the American salmon is at hand. The little 

 evidence which I have collected is entirely 

 against this idea. There are annual fluctua- 

 tions in the average weight of the salmon, 

 probably due to feeding conditions in the 

 ocean. The fluctuations are similar for the 

 salmon of the Moisie, Godbout, Restigouche 

 and Cascapedia rivers over a period of many 

 years. The fluctuations in the salmon of 

 the Wye River (England) do not agree at 

 all with those of the American salmon. This 

 fact suggests that the salmon of the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence have a different oceanic 

 feeding ground than have the salmon of 

 England, and that there is no mingling of 

 the salmon from the two sides of the 

 Atlantic. 



Dr. Huntsman. We have facts similar 

 to those Dr. Belding has given ; and perhaps 

 as a result of a different approach we come 

 to different conclusions to those he has 

 indicated. Let us take the view that salmon 

 come in from the ocean, have a feeding 

 ground outside. Undoubtedly a large 

 amount of food is available in the inside 

 waters, e.g., the Bay of Fundy. For the 

 Bay of Fundy the evidence is against the 

 idea that the salmon come in from the 

 ocean. Salmon are rare at Grand Manan at 

 the mouth of the Bay on the New Bruns- 

 wick side. On the opposite side of the Bay 

 at Brier Island I was able to get only one 

 record of a salmon being taken. When it 

 comes to the order of appearance of the fish 

 related to the St. John River, for example, 

 if they were coming from outside, you would 

 expect that they would be caught first at 

 the outer end of the fishing area whereas 

 the exact opposite is the case. They get them 

 first next or in the harbor. At the head of 

 the Bay of Fundy they are taken in weirs 

 along the south shore of Minas Channel, and 

 they are actually caught first at the inner 



