n. C. SEA-LION INVESTIGATION 25 



SESSIONAL FAPER No. 38a 



15. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 



The commissioners are satisfied that as the numbers of sea-lions in or near Rivers 

 inlet increased from 1911 to 1913, they were present in sufficient numbers to be a 

 serious menace to the fishing industry, although there was no diminution in the pack 

 until 1913. Thus the pack for 1910 was 129,398 cases, for 1911, 101,066 cases, and for 

 1912, it amounted to 137, GOT cases; in 1913 there were only 6'8,096 cases put up. the 

 smallest pack since 1901. This was the year in which it was found useless to fish 

 farther out towards the mouth of Rivers inlet than the entrance to Draineys inlet. 

 The fact that the fishermen had to stop all fishing in this region on account of the 

 number of fish taken out of the nets and the amount of damage done to gear is backed 

 Tip by the fact that the cannery managers of the five outer canneries in the inlet were 

 willing to put up their own money in 1914 as a bounty that the number of sea-lions 

 might be reduced. Coincident with the decrease in the number brought about in this 

 way in 1914, the pack went up again, amounting to 109,052 cases. While the fluctu- 

 ation from year to year is always evident, the great decrease in the pack for 1913 can 

 scarcely be accounted for on that basis. In 1915 a bounty of two dollars per muzzle 

 was placed on sea-lions by the Department of Fisheries. This might have been 

 expected to help out the Rivers inlet canneries, and probably it did so as the pack 

 146,838 cases, slightly surpassed the previous high record of 1912. Of this pack, over 

 130,000 cases were sockeye, over 27 per cent of the total sockeye pack for the province 

 for this year. Since such a pack is worth approximately $1,200,000, it is certainly 

 worth conserving. 



However, as this bounty of two dollars was an indiscriminating bounty, its 

 success was not unqualified. It is true that many sea-lions were killed in tlie vicinity 

 of Rivers inlet, but it is also true, as shown in this report, that more than twice the 

 number were killed at points too far distant from Rivers inlet to have any effect on 

 the fishing there, not because sea-lions, on oecasion, do not travel so far, but that at, 

 and for some time after, the pupping season, they remain in the vicinity of the 

 rookery, and this season corresponds with the time of the sockeye run in Rivers inlet. 

 Furthermore, it is commonly believed that the numbers in the Sea Otter rookery 

 have greatly increased since the lions were driven from Triangle island after the 

 erection of the lighthouse and the installation of a wireless plant there. If this is 

 true, the killing of so many sea-lions on the East and West Haycocks in 1915 will 

 tend to drive those uninjured away from these islands and hence it might increase 

 the num'bers in the Sea Otter rookery, thus doing harm rather than good to the Rivers 

 inlet fishing. Since only the muzzle was required to obtain the bounty, it was possible 

 for a very few individuals to kill a sufficient number on the rookeries in a very 

 short time to take up all of the bounty, whether these lions were doing any harm or 

 not, consequently, in other cases where sea-lions, likely to be doing harm, were 

 killed, there was no bounty available. As an example, the Barkley sound fishermen 

 had made 'complaints of depredations by sea-lions but as the whole available bounty 

 was used up in June, while the sea-lions did not come into Barkley sound until the 

 first of November, the Barkley sound fishermen received no benefit whatever from the 

 bounty. If the skins and carcasses had been made use of, such wholesale killing in 

 such a short period would not have been possible, and some return might have been 

 obtained from the money expended. 



The opinion is still held by eminent seientific men that it has not yet been 

 proved that fish is an important item of the food of sea-lions. Drs. Merriam, Ever- 

 mann and Hornaday have been much quoted in this regard. These men and others, 

 during the California controversy, refused to put any faith in the statements of the 

 fishermen regarding the sea-lion depredations. The period covered by the researches 

 of the commission has been a I'jnited one but even in this limited period sufficieint 



