60 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
He states that the Beluga, or white whale, is a great consumer of fish 
of all kinds, but is especially destructive to the salmon and cod of the 
Lower Saint Lawrence, the former particularly. Some distance up the 
Saguenay River, where the salmon were supposed to have been much 
injured by the Beluga, a license was taken out in 1872 for their capture, 
and in 1873 a large number (some sixty) were secured at one haul. In 
this way a very great diminution was effected.* 
These have in turn reacted upon the fisheries, since the sharks, which 
had been kept down in point of numbers by the belugas, multiplied, or 
Fete en 
at least came in such numbers as, in their turn, to affect very seriously | 
the fisheries, the fish being greatly diminished and those captured show- 
ing marks of laceration by the teeth of their new enemies. The in- 
creased abundance of the sharks was also shown by the much larger 
number of them captured in the nets. 
Another statement of Mr. Whitcher still further illustrates the rela- 
tion between the white whales and the salmon. It is well known that 
within a few years the salmon fisheries within the Dominion of Canada 
have been very greatly increased by the enforcement of legislation for 
the protection of fish during their spawning season, and for the increase 
of the supply by artificial propagation. 
Another illustration of the same character, as also furnished by Mr. 
Whitcher, is to be found in the Bay of Chaleur. In former years the 
streams emptying into this bay abounded in salmon, but presented the 
usual appearance of salmon rivers in a marked decrease in numbers by 
overfishing and other agencies, and this continued for a period of anum- — 
ber of years. More recently, however, as a result of the wise legisla- 
tion on the part of the Canadian Government of protection during 
spawning season, and the measures of artificial propagation, the fish 
are again found in very great abundance. For twenty years the white 
whales were not known in the Bay of Chaleur, or only by stragglers, but 
latterly they have returned in large numbers. The first year of their 
occurrence they came after the salmon had entered the bay and drove 
them into the shores, where they were taken in very large numbers by 
the traps and nets that had got a small capture in the lower parts of 
the rivers. The next year the belugas, or porpoises, came early in the 
season, before the salmon, and apparently awaited their arrival. They 
committed great havoc among them and cut them off apparently from — 
. yp | 
the immediate shores. 


*According to the report of the British Fishery Commission, p. xliv, at one time 
in consequence of the apparent diminution in the abundance of fish in Loch Fyne, one — 
of the best known herring fisheries in Scotland, what was then considered a very de- 
structive mode of fishing, by the circle-net, was interdicted for a number of years. 
It was found, however, that this had not produced the effect supposed, as the decrease 
of the fish continued for a time, and after the circle-net fishing was restored the fish — 
again became as abundant as ever. 
