CONFERENCE ON SALMON PROBLEMS 



93 



upon what the fish are, that is whether or 

 not they are in the vicinity of their rivers. 



Mr. Menzies. The marking results quite 

 clearly show that at the north end of 

 Moray Firth and at Thurso Bay we are 

 dealing with fish belonging to the locality. 



Dr. H^mtsman. That illustration is more 

 clear cut. Of the fish caught subsequently 

 none were any distance away. The out- 

 standing behavior at Port-aux-Basques 

 which Dr. Beldiug describes so well was the 

 reverse; the fish were noteworthy in not 

 staying there any length of time. 



Mr. Menzies. They are on their main 

 migration ? 



Dr. Huntsman. Does that mean that 

 they were on the way to some distant place 

 which is the home stream? 



Mr. Menzies. What do you call "dis- 

 tant?" 



Dr. Huntsman. Some of the fish tagged 

 at Port-aux-Basques went only a few miles 

 before being recaptured. 



Mr. Menzies. Migrating closer and closer 

 to the river mouth. They were not local 

 fish. Distance does not come in. 



Dr. Huntsman. They were away from 

 river influence. 



Mr. Menzies. That is where I differ from 

 you. When I mark a fish in Scotland 

 within a quarter of a mile of a river it may 

 be away from the river influence. 



Dr. Huntsman. At the head of Bedford 

 Basin inside Halifax harbor, there is the 

 Sackville River, on which there is a hatch- 

 ery where the local fish are trapped for 

 hatchery purposes. The fish are taken by 

 fishermen in the upper end of that basin 

 which forms an estuary for the river. In 

 one season which was extremely dry, the 

 local people report that while fish could be 

 caught for a time, later they left the local- 

 ity, presumably with failure of the river 

 influence. 



Mr. Menzies. You said from the fact 

 that they were there steadily that was their 

 river. Later it showed, when they left, 

 that was not their river. 



Dr. Huntsman. How can I accept that 

 assumption ? 



Mr. Menzies. Large numbers went up 



the local rivers, they captured the marked 

 fish. 



Dr. Huntsman. Do they belong to a 

 local river if they are four or five miles up, 

 sufficiently far up? 



Mr. J. A. Bodd. Those fish were appar- 

 ently on the way to the spawning grounds. 

 It was quite late in the season when they 

 left. Apparently they were near the spawn- 

 ing grounds. 



Dr. Huntsman. The point I wish to 

 make is that they left. They did not go up 

 the river, although they had been quite 

 visible in the outer bay. They exhibit a 

 different behavior when near the spawning 

 beds. 



I am having great difficulty in getting 

 from recaptures any clear evidence of a re- 

 lation between the behavior of the fish and 

 their nearness to the rivers from which 

 they have come. There is definite evidence 

 of movement to other rivers. 



Mr. Menzies. That is the exception to 

 the rule. 



Mr. Bodd. Before the fishway was put in 

 at St. George, New Brunswick, the fish could 

 not get over the falls, they would go to the 

 St. John River. They were not caught 

 there. You could see them from the falls. 

 The tides come to the foot of the falls. 



Mr. Menzies. In dry weather they go 

 from one estuary to another and this dif- 

 ference shows it. 



Dr. Huntsman. It is clear that we have 

 comparable conditions on the two sides of 

 the Atlantic and that the behavior of the 

 salmon is similar. 



Mr. Menzies. But we have nothing com- 

 parable to your facts of feeding salmon in 

 the estuary such as you have in the St. John. 

 Mr. Cowie. When I was over in the Old 

 Country 10 or 12 years ago, I found that the 

 late Duke of Richmond and Gordon had a 

 small hatchery near Gordon Castle on the 

 Spey, about 12 miles from my old home. On 

 visiting the hatchery I found that there were 

 a million salmon fry in it. I asked the man 

 in charge where they got their eggs from 

 which the fry had been developed, and I 

 was rather astonished when he told me that 

 they simply salvaged the eggs from fish at 



