636 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



rivers, below cities, it may do important service as a scavenger, 

 destroying the germs of certain human diseases, as it does the larval 

 and encysted stages of the liver fluke. 



Even were it possible to estimate the money value of the damage 

 done, such a basis would not be an entirely fair one for comparison. 

 Should the carp help to hasten the extermination of any of our water- 

 fowl, or if it destroys the beauty of lakes, as is claimed, this is a harm 

 which can not be reckoned in dollar and cents. As has been pointed 

 out elsewhere, however, there are other and more influential factors 

 at work in the destruction of the water- fowl; and in the other case 

 special measures of prevention and protection must be employed. 



And when we have decided whether the carp does more harm than 

 good, we still have the real question before us. The essential problem 

 is this: The carp is here, and here to stay; what are we going to do 

 with it? How can we make the most of its good qualities and prevent 

 it from doing damage? Even were such a course desirable, the 

 extermination of the carp in our waters is out of the question. Mr. 

 Townsend, in some remarks before the American Fisheries Society 

 (Transactions of Thirtieth Annual Meeting, 1901, p. 123) stated the 

 case well when he said: 



We hear a great deal from sportsmen's clubs and from other sources as to how the 

 carp can be exterminated. It can not be exterminated. It is hke the English spar- 

 row, it is here to stay. At a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 a while ago, one of our foremost ornithologists stated that the European sparrow 

 could not be exterminated in this country. I think it is the same with the carp. It 

 is here to stay and we can not exterminate it any more than we can exterminate 

 the green grass of the fields. I do not wish to pose as an advocate of the carp — I 

 prefer other fish for myself — but I maintain that the carp has a place in good and 

 regular standing in our big eastern markets, and I do not think that our great repub- 

 lic with its rapidly increasing population, can afford to sneer at even so cheap a 

 source of food. 



In the course of my investigations and inquiries I met frequent 

 propositions that the government, or the respective state governments, 

 should ofl'er a bounty on carp. Nothing could be more futile than this, 

 as has been abundantly illustrated in the case of the English sparrow. 

 The best bounty that can be offered is an increasing market — a grow- 

 ing demand that will make tishing for carp a profitable business. The 

 case in Lake St. Clair is a good illustration. While there I heard the 

 bount}^ proposition frequently advocated by sportsmen who came to 

 the flats to fish and hunt. But a shrewd resident said, let the state 

 amend the laws so as to allow the taking of carp in nets, and there 

 will soon be enough people fishing for them to reduce their numbers. 

 Since then the laws have been changed so as to allow seining in the 

 lake, and if the removal of enormous quantities of the fish (see p. 614) 

 will do anj'thing toward permanently reducing their numbers, such 

 certainly ought to be the result there now. The lines along which it 



