60 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



He states that the Beluga, or white whale, is a great consumer offish 

 of all kinds, but is especially destructive to tbe salmon and cod of the 

 Lower Saint Lawrence, the former particularly. . Some distance up the 

 Saguenay Elver, 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 

 bad been kept down in point of numbers by the belugas, multiplied, or 

 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 a num- 

 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 

 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. 



