and intensive background training prepares a man for a wide range of Departmental 

 duties. When he becomes a conservation officer his responsibihties will include 

 law enforcement, biological surveys of lakes, planting fish, participating in the creel 

 census, evaluating wildlife habitat, assessing deer wintering grounds and measuring 

 degree of browsing, conducting aerial moose surveys and grouse drumming counts, 

 attending meetings of fish and game clubs, operating wildlife check stations, 

 assessing and recommending applications for bait fish and commercial fishing 

 licences, sampling commercial fishing catches, sealing fur, collecting deer and 

 moose jaws for age studies, assigning traplines, issuing trapping licenses, providing 

 hunter safety training, visiting schools with a conservation message, reading fish 

 scales to determine their age, report writing and many other duties. In addition, 

 he must, in many areas, participate in forest fire suppression and undertake such 

 duties as provincial land tax assessments of summer cottages, scaling saw logs or 

 pulpwood and other tasks as they are assigned. While he co-operates by accepting 

 responsibilities from time to time which are outside of the direct fish and wildlife 

 category, he enjoys co-operation from other staff. 



The collection of scientific data by conservation officers under the guidance 

 of Department Biologists very often leads to improvements in, or to the creation 

 of, new regulations. To make these effective, a high standard of law enforcement 

 is essential. Many field duties are seasonal and this is also true of poaching. Thus 

 the conservation officer can plan his time to deal efficiently with critical problems 

 as they arise. Duck baiting, fish spearing and mid-summer deer hunting (usually 

 done at night) require a high priority. Creel census and game bag census go along 

 v/ell with the extensive type of patrols of the open seasons. Experience shows that 

 most sportsmen find this type of checking interesting and informative from their 

 own point of view. 



The conservation officer staff, which includes field supervisors and fisheries 

 and wildlife management officers as well, increased to 233 officers during the 

 fiscal year. The law enforcement program increased in efficiency too, as indicated 

 by the greater number of seizures and convictions shown for 1963-64, as compared 

 with some earlier years: 



1955-56 2,895 Convictions 



1956-57 2,704 



1957-58 2,993 



1958-59 2,525 



1959-60 2,228 



1960-61 2,160 



1961-62 2,049 



1962-63 2,045 



1963-64 2,276 



The results of prosecutions during the last four fiscal years are summarized 



as follows: 



1960-61 1961-62 1962-63 1963- 64 



Number of Seizures 



Number of Convictions 



Cases Dismissed 



Convictions reported by the R.C.M.P. 



re Migratory Bird Regulations 

 Seizures, from persons unknown 



2,424 



2,160 



126 



47 

 139 



2,050 



2,049 



56 



30 



37 



2,186 



2,045 



66 



34 

 58 



2,508 



2,276 



68 



18 

 81 



Hunting or fishing without a license continues to be a major item in the 

 conviction records. Almost one-quarter of the cases handled fell in this category, 

 as the following table shows: 



94 



