.liiicncaii I'lslicrics Society. \r,:, 



whitefish and one and one-half pounds for lake trout — at wliicli 

 as2^e they are snp|)osed to reproihioe themselves naturally. 



"Our leg-islature in .Miehio^an is nnieh like the lepjislatures of 

 other States, very eareful of their ap])ropriations. and especially 

 for this work of protection. It re(|uires the sentiment of the 

 community to enforce ])rotecti^■e laws, as it does any other law, 

 and to i^et an appropriation for this work it requires a ^ond 

 deal of work to i;et them to understand the importance of such 

 legislation. We are laboring at a good deal of disadvantage with 

 our very small appropriation, the legislature only giving us $2,000 

 for the work of protecting the Great Lakes and inland waters. 

 We have a lake coast of nearly 2,500 miles, and very much of 

 it is good fishing ground, and commercial fishermen are found 

 at nearly every village along the coast. We have this whole 

 space to look after, together with the sentimental fishes in the 

 inland lakes, where we are bothered with dynamiters, netters and 

 other violators, besides protecting our game in the field and 

 forest. 



"In addition to this $2,000 we get a little revenue from our 

 hunting license law. We have a law^ in our State that requires the 

 payment by a non-resident of $25 license for the hunting of deer, 

 and a resident license of 75 cents. We have from this a revenue 

 of $4,000 or $5,000 ; that makes $6,000 or $7,000 annually to 

 expend. This is all the fund we have for State deputies, of 

 which we are allowed ten, who are paid a per diem and expenses, 

 and who work under the direction of the State Warden. In ad- 

 dition to this we have County Wardens, who are paid by the 

 Boards of Supervisors, and most of you know how well County 

 Supervisors pay wardens or others whom they are employing. 

 But we get out of these county deputies a certain amount of 

 work wdiich materially aids our State men. A very few of the 

 counties give us no aid, being against the sentiment of the work, 

 and these vote an appropriation of only one dollar per year for 

 county wardens. In the last five years we find that sentiment is 

 rapidly growing for the better protection of our game and fish. 

 In some counties, for instance, a year ago where we were unable, 



