AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 35 



niatlci's were all discussed iu our IJoard and ajjjrced upon be- 

 forehand, the majority disajireeing with the proposition that 

 the gill nets should be four inches. They thought they ought 

 to be five or more. I agreed with them, but suggested that 

 Ave should take what we could get; that if we could get them 

 I0 open the mesh a little we would see if we could not get them 

 in tiuu^ to ojx'U it further, and I oj)])osed jtutting in a bill that 

 would be defeat I'd Ix'cause of the exti*enie si/e of the mesh 

 asked for. That law was ])assed fixing the nu'sh at four inches, 

 and it has stood on the statute book for two years. F>ut what 

 has occurred this year? liut I am antici])ating, and I want 

 to say before I go to that, that the Michigan Fish Trust has 

 been all these years claiming to us: "For God's sake do not 

 put your i-egulation on the twine, you are doing away with 

 millions of {iroperty; you are i)ractically confiscating it." So a 

 provision was ])ut in allowing three years to fish out the twine. 

 That was certainly long enough. They have always met every 

 proj)Osition the Michigan Tommission has made in the way of 

 ■protecting fish by saying that the only way you can do it is 

 to fix a regulation as to the minimum size of fish that may be 

 caught. They said that the whole nuitter could thus be reg- 

 ulated and that they would favor such a law. The answer to 

 that, of course, is apparent to every one. You would have to 

 have a warden at every net to watch and see what they were 

 doing. But without any interference whatever these people 

 went to the Legislature this year and passed a law prescrib- 

 ing a limit of size of fish; for whitefish two pounds, and a limit 

 for other fish at other sizes. Then they went to work and in 

 the closing days of the session reduced the size of the mesh, 

 to three and one-half inches; and to cap the climax, almost on 

 the last day of the session, the Legislature, at the instance of 

 the ilichigan Fish Trust, passed a bill legalizing the sale of 

 fish of any size caught in any legal sized net. Now, what was 

 the result? I discovered that provision a week ago last Satur- 

 day, and wrote to the Governor calling his attention to the 

 facts and he vetoed the bill. 



Xow, if you are going to give protection to fish at all, and 

 you must give them some protection, here is a pretty good 

 thing to call your attention to as to its necessity. The Priby- 

 lov group of islands lies otf the peninsula of Alaska. Within 

 a certain hour of a certain-day of almost every year, the fur 

 bearing seal, through the instinct of nature, comes there to 

 reproduce its kind. It is their spawning season, their calving 

 season. The I'nited States Government has been attempting 

 for a number of years to regulate that fishery, to save the seals; 

 and the decay has resulted notwithstanding that, the only time 

 they are fished for is in the season when they propagate. 



