UTILIZATION OF CANADA'S PACIFIC MARINE RESOURCES 319 



Regulations prevent fishing much above tidal influence or, at 

 smaller streams, near the river mouths at all. Such regulations and the 

 fishermen's desire for comfort and efficiency have, during recent years, 

 promoted the use of gasoline-driven boats, replacing rowboats and sail- 

 boats. Still more recently competition for fish has led to the use of 

 larger and faster boats so that the fish can be met and caught as they 

 approach the mouths of the rivers. There results an economic balance 

 between the efficiency resulting from access to all of the fish as they 

 approach the fishing giounds and the inefficiency arising from using 

 better equipment than is necessary to do the work. The situation has 

 been encouraged by the increasing market price for fish. When prices 

 fall the point of economic balance may shift so that the use of expen- 

 sive equipment may become unprofitable. Adjustment is likely to prove 

 very a^vkward. 



Research Attitude 



The fisheries resources of Western Canada are the subject of mod- 

 erately intense research. Research on the wholly marine species (except 

 herring) adapts traditional approaches to the local species and prevail- 

 ing conditions. As a basis for assuring maximum sustained utilization, 

 information is sought on such inatters as migrations, population limits, 

 the factors controlling abundance through year-class variation, factors 

 influencing catchability by modifying shoaling habits, rates of growth, 

 and intensity of the fishery. The objectives and approaches for herring 

 are complicated by the herring's inshore spawning in the intertidal zone 

 and the consequent conviction that the species is subject to economic 

 extinction by overfishing. Full scale experiments to test the effective- 

 ness of protective regulations are in progress. 



Most research effort is devoted to salmon. The anadromous habit 

 makes salmon extremely vulnerable to fishing. The determination and 

 provision of the number of spawners required to perpetuate the re- 

 source without withholding an unnecessary surplus from the fishery, are 

 major problems whose difficulty is increased by the variations in re- 

 productive success which occur from year to year under natural condi- 

 tions in the freshwater habitats of salmon. The parts played by droughts, 

 freshets and frost in suppressing salmon populations are under investiga- 

 tion. Such information is needed both for the determination of the pro- 

 portion of the runs which should be used by the fishery and for the 

 prediction of variations in the abundance of available fish so that the 

 industry may avoid economic loss through unnecessary surplus of fish 

 on the spawning grounds. 



