A total of 900,000 copies of the regular hunting summary 

 of the seasons and regulations for all species is published. 

 This is sufficient for a copy to be issued with each hunting 

 licence sold. 



Consolidated office copies of The Came and Fish Act, 

 1961-62, and the Ontario Fishery Regulations are provided 

 annually for use by conservation officers, other staff, law- 

 yers, courts and the public. 



Articles seized as evidence under The Came and Fish 

 Act become the property of the Crown upon conviction. 

 The Minister may grant relief from forfeiture where he con- 

 siders the forfeiture would work undue hardship or injus- 

 tice. Relief may be granted under conditions which he 

 deems to be proper and just. Equipment retained is sold by 

 public auction at annual sales. Two sales are held in north- 

 ern Ontario and two in southern Ontario for fishing tackle 

 each spring, and similarly in the fall for seized guns. The 

 locations are changed annually. In the past year, $20,384 was 

 turned into the Provincial Treasury from these sales. 



The training of conservation officers and others con- 

 cerned with the enforcement of provincial and federal stat- 

 utes is continuing, with a total of seventy-eight officers and 

 other personnel receiving in-service training during the year. 



HUNTING LICENCE EXAMINATIONS 



The hunting licence examination has just experienced its 

 first full year of operation, and in consideration of this 

 being the first such program on the North American con- 

 tinent with few guide lines to follow, it was considered to 

 be very successful. Some 22,474 persons applied for and 

 took a hunting licence examination in 21 Forest Districts, 

 as follows: 



Lake Erie 3,178 



Lake Huron 3,262 



Lake Simcoe 5,120 



Lindsay 702 



Tweed 1 ,201 



Kemptville 1,550 



Pembroke 452 



Parry Sound 400 



North Bay 574 



Sudbury 1,163 



Sault Ste Marie 895 



White River , 215 



Chapleau 121 



Swastika 310 



Cochrane 503 



Kapuskasing 294 



Ceraldton 125 



Port Arthur 1 ,448 



Fort Frances 321 



Kenora 384 



Sioux Lookout 256 



TOTAL 22,474 



Failure rates were highest in the south with some 23 per 

 cent of the applicants failing to qualify. Northern Ontario 

 had a much lower failure rate of 13 percent producing a pro- 

 vincial average of 21 per cent. Seventy-five per cent of the 

 applicants were from southern Ontario. Continued evalua- 

 tion of the licence examination program, in co-ordination 

 with improved hunter safety training instruction, is the best 

 means of increasing the percentage of successful applicants, 

 thereby reducing the number of hunting accidents. 



The Province of Ontario experienced its lowest number 

 of hunting accidents (96) in the past fiscal year since the 

 program was initiated. 



SEIZURES AND CONVICTIONS 



The Seizures and Convictions unit provides records for 

 comparative purposes. A total of 3,674 violations were en- 

 countered during the fiscal year. This is the highest num- 

 ber on record for one year. The increase in violations 

 reported has not kept pace with the great increase in 

 hunters and anglers. There was a decrease in violations in 

 the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, this decline has 

 now been reversed, and violations and the numbers of 

 people using the resource are following almost parallel 

 courses. 



CENTRAL LICENCE BUREAU 



This Bureau was set up in 1968 to provide a registry for all 

 hunters and fishermen in Ontario. It is hoped that this cen- 

 tral file will facilitate an annual survey of sportsmen in 

 Ontario and thereby give a sound basis for the manage- 

 ment of fish and wildlife resources. 



A central registry will provide a check on hunters, to 

 make sure that only the legal number of licences are pur- 

 chased in one season, and also to check that additional 

 licences are not purchased once the privileges of a person 

 have been revoked through an order of a provincial judge 

 due to conviction for an offence. 



The Bureau will serve the public by fulfilling requests for 

 copies of lost licences. Through the "identification badge" 

 number system, landowners can enquire as to the holders of 

 certain hunting licences; thus, sportsmen-landowner rela- 

 tionships are improved. 



At present, the filing system is basically manual, but it is 

 in the process of being converted to an automated one 

 whereby all licence information is filed by electronic 

 computer. 



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