HUNTING LICENCE EXAMINATIONS 



The hunting licence examination program has just com- 

 pleted its second year with a total of 22,474 applicants ex- 

 amined in 1968 and 23,415 examined in 1969, an increase 

 of 941 applicants. The twenty-one Forest Districts reported 

 the following applicants examined in 1969. 



Lake Erie 3,931 



Lake Huron 3,444 



Lake Simcoe 4,184 



Lindsay 881 



Tweed 1,397 



Kemptville 1,824 



Pembroke 394 



Parry Sound 474 



North Bay 669 



Sudbury 1,354 



Sault Ste. Marie 818 



White River 153 



Chapleau 159 



Swastika 518 



Cochrane 521 



Kapuskasing 416 



Ceraldton 152 



Thunder Bay 1,135 



Fort Frances 315 



Kenora 423 



Sioux Lookout 274 



TOTAL 23,436 



Failure rates were highest in southwestern Ontario at 22 

 per cent while the remaining eighteen districts had a failure 

 rate of only 8.4 per cent, with a provincial average of 10 per 

 cent. This is an improvement of 3 per cent over the average 

 of 1968. 



Total accidents for 1969 numbered one hundred and 

 thirty, an increase over the previous year. However, when 

 based on the rate of accidents per number of licences sold, 

 which gives consideration to the yearly increase in hunters, 

 there is a slight decrease over the yearly average for the 

 past nine years of 20.3 per 100,000 licences. 



CENTRAL LICENCE BUREAU 



The Central Licence Bureau has been in operation since 

 1968. From that time, copies of licences sold to hunters and 

 fishermen have been coming in at a steady pace. There are 

 now approximately 1,200,000 hunting licences on record 

 and 1,500,000 angling licences. 



These licences, with the names and addresses on the li- 

 censees, serve as the basis of mailed surveys to hunters and 

 fishermen in Ontario. Each fall, a survey is taken of the 

 moose and deer hunt in Ontario. All surveys do not directly 

 involve the public. Valuable information, such as age class- 

 ifications and origin of the sportsman, can be obtained by 

 sampling for information contained on the licence. 



The Bureau assists our conservation officers and the police 

 in matters of law enforcement through the "identification 

 badge" number system. Landowners can identify hunters on 

 their lands through this system. 



The Central Licence Bureau also serves the public by veri- 

 fying a hunting or fishing licence purchase so that a new or 

 duplicate licence may be purchased in the event the original 

 is lost or stolen. Each year, 500 applications for verification 

 are processed; of these, some 350 come in late September 

 and early October. 



SEIZURES AND CONVICTIONS 



The Seizures and Convictions unit recorded 5,164 offences 

 with 4,654 convictions registered. The remainder were dis- 

 missed or withdrawn, or are incomplete to date. This is 

 again the highest number of offences on record for a single 

 year. The annual increases being experienced since 1962 are 

 probably the result of increasing numbers of hunters and 

 anglers and are following parallel courses. 



Hungarian partridge, live-trapped annually in southeastern 

 Ontario, are released into suitable habitat in southwestern 

 Ontario. Photo by I. B. Dawson. 



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