304 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Before the building of canneries at Semiahmoo and Point Eoberts 

 the Fraser River furnished the only market for disposing of the fish in 

 fresh condition; but the establishment of canning operations near the 

 location of the traps has changed all this. In 1895 the river canneries 

 received out of the total catch of 680,000 sockeye only about 80,000, of 

 which 30,000 came from the nets in the Canadian waters of Boundary 

 Bay and 50,000 from three nets south of the boundary line. In good 

 years, when the Fraser River catch is ample, there has been no need to 

 draw on Boundary Bay, although contracts previously made may have 

 to be carried out, while in poor years there is a desire to retain at Point 

 Roberts as much as possible of the sockeye catch made in that vicinity. 

 The Fraser River cauners are, as a rule, opposed to handling sockeye 

 from Point Roberts, except in <;ases of emergency, for the reason that 

 the fish are apt to deteriorate greatly in condition during transportation, 

 when they are piled in large scows and towed from the fishing-grounds 

 to the canneries. The season, being the height of summer, is unfavor- 

 able, and the fish are often so soft upon reaching their destination that 

 no use can be made of them. This happens most often in years of large 

 catches, when the competition for markets is very great, and when the 

 loss of fish from this cause has sometimes been very heavy. 



There is a marked inequality in the size of the sockeye catch at Point 

 Roberts, as in other localities, from time to time during the same season, 

 due to fluctuations in the abundance of the fish, as elsewhere explained. 

 Small catches for a period may be followed by excessive ones (amounting 

 occasionally, it is said, to from 40,000 to 50,C00 sockeye in a single day 

 by the principal nets at Point Roberts), the latter sometimes causing a 

 surplus which the canneries can not utilize immediately. In this respect 

 the trap nets possess an advantage over the gill nets, in affording 

 the means -of releasing or keeping the fish alive, through the crib itself 

 or the spiller. The practice has also been followed of removing the 

 surplus catch to cold chambers awaiting use. 



Notwithstanding the special advantages which the traps present in 

 this respect, there is what seems to be well-founded complaint of the 

 waste of many fish through their means, including even the sockeye in 

 seasons of great abundance. The charges recite that this species is 

 sometimes retained in the nets until no longer fit for use, and also that 

 at times only a small proportion, the choicest parts, of each fish are 

 utilized for canning, the remainder being rejected. As it is difiicult 

 to imagine the willful destruction of so valuable a fish simply, as it is 

 claimed, to prevent their coming into the possession of others, it is to 

 be hoped that the circumstances are not so bad as represented. The 

 danger of the extermination of the species is too great to justify a 

 resort to any such methods and most stringent measures should be 

 adopted to prevent a waste in this direction. 



The principal destruction is probably of other sjiecies of salmon and 

 of fishes belonging to other groups, which are trapped in conjunction 

 with the sockeye and in the removal of which no pains are taken to 



