FISHING INDUSTRY OF THE GREAT LAKES 609 



The Ontario law prohibits the taking of whitefish or trout under 2 

 pounds in the round, herring under 8 ounces, carp under 3 pounds, 

 sturgeon under 42 inches, wall-eyed pike (blue) under 11 inches, 

 wall-eyed pike (yellow) under 15 inches, perch under 9 inches, sheeps- 

 head under 12 inches, and white bass under 9 inches. 



CLOSED SEASONS 



There is no closed season on any species except that wall-eyed 

 pike (yellow) may not be taken in New York waters from March 2 

 to May 9, both dates inclusive. 



CONSERVATION OF THE GREAT LAKES FISHERIES 



DEPLETION AND ITS CAUSES 



The preservation of the fisheries has been discussed often during 

 the past 50 years, and more excellent suggestions have been made 

 than have been followed. In the meantime the fish supply has 

 continued to decrease. No argument is necessary to prove that 

 fish are now less abundant than they were 50 years ago, but it is of 

 interest to express, if possible, the relationship between present and 

 past abundance. The complete statistics for American waters 

 gathered in 1917 disclose a 100 per cent inflation in the value of 

 fisheries products, which stimulated a production hardly equal to that 

 of a preceding survey in 1908 and below the level reached in 1890 and 

 1899. Fifty per cent more gill nets and about 90 per cent more traps 

 were needed to attain this level. The 1922 data show the amount of 

 apparatus to have declined somewhat, and the catch to have increased 

 slightly, but the quantity of apparatus is still greater than that 

 reported at any census previous to 1917, and the catch of what were 

 ''rough fish^' in 1880 is by far the highest on record. On the Cana- 

 dian shore fishing has not been prosecuted so intensively or extensively 

 as on the American shore until within the last 10 years, but the Cana- 

 dian statistics show the same unequal relationship between the 

 increase in apparatus and the increase in production. The statistics 

 do not show what part of the total yield is made up of previously 

 undesirable species, nor do they reflect the effectiveness of the 

 superior apparatus now generally employed. 



If we turn from incomplete statistics to a consideration of the 

 testimony of the fishermen we are forced to the same conclusion. 

 While in certain localities the pursuit of the remnants of certain 

 species has so fallen off as to allow them to maintain their numbers or 

 €ven to increase somewhat, in general, the situation can not be viewed 

 -with any satisfaction. We are faced with the extermination of the 

 sturgeon in all the lakes, of the bluefin in Lake Superior, the blackfin 

 in Lake Michigan, and the bloater in Lake Ontario, and with the 

 reduction of the whitefish from first place in abundance in 1880 to 

 fourth place in 1922, with that place contested closely by the sucker, 

 which was in 1880 not considered worth the catching. 



POLLUTION 



The pollution of the streams and shores that serve as feeding and 

 spawning grounds for the fish is believed to have contributed in no 

 small degree to the reduction of the fish supply. In the days of lum- 



