CONSERVATION OF FOREST LIFE 



By Richard E, Follett 



I have been invited to entertain you with motion pic- 

 tures and incidently to say something regarding the import- 

 ance of conserving our forests and forest life. I will pro- 

 ceed at once by showing you salmon fishing with rod and 

 line in Canada, on the Nepisguit and Tobique Rivers, two 

 well known salmon rivers in New Brunswick. These rivers 

 take their source near the southern boundary of Restigouche 

 County, flowing in opposite directions. The Nepisguit runs 

 eastward and discharges into the Bay of Chaleur, and the 

 Tobique flows westward, discharging into the River St. 

 John. [Motion pictures showing the capture of about 

 twenty Atlantic salmon were then exhibited.] 



It is no easy task for me to address the members of this 

 time-honored American Fisheries Society; however, the 

 knowledge that you are all deeply interested in the conserva- 

 tion of forests and forest life, together with the fact that 

 you fish conservators have done more during the past thirty 

 years or more toward conserving valuable fish life than all 

 the other agencies combined, makes my task less arduous. 



We cannot have salmon rivers or good trout streams 

 without forests. All salmon rivers are forest-fed rivers. 

 All living streams, except those in glacial regions, are 

 sustained by the run-off underneath the surface which is 

 largely held and supplied by the forests. At present, we 

 are consuming our forests three or four times as fast as 

 they reproduce, and our forest area has been reduced to 

 practically one-half of its former area. Our fish, game, and 

 other forms of forest life have been reduced to a far 

 greater extent during the last century. 



We are taking from forest waters each year more than 

 $23,000,000 worth of food fish, nearly one-half as much 

 as is furnished by the game; and from $7,000,000 to 



