102 REPORT OF TTTE FIRTT AND GAME COMMISSION. 



REPORT OF THE LOS ANGELES DISTRICT. 



The Jlonorahle Board of Fish and Game Commissioners of the State of 

 California. 



Sirs: We are pleased to present the following report of Sonthern 

 Division activities in the eanse of fish and game conservation during the 

 biennial period closing June 30, 1920. 



Oui- policy during the last two years has been one of steadily increas- 

 ing and ever more detailed frankness with oui- masters, the pulilic. It 

 has been dictated witli ])articular reference to the sportsnien and com- 

 mercial fisheries interests, which jointly finance our work through their 

 contribution of licenses and other special forms of taxation. Never have 

 we lost sight of the peculiarly direct responsibility devolving upon us 

 for a frequent and frank accounting to the general public, as well as to 

 these earlier, but no less certain, beneficiaries of this great trust that 

 has been placed under our charge. 



PUBLICITY. 



We have consistently sought tlirough the ever charitable medium of 

 our generous southern California press, to advise the people, by 

 means of a continuous and systematic newspaper campaign, using 

 widely circulated articles of live news value, written from the view- 

 puiiit <jf those specially interested, and distributed with all possible con- 

 sideration of newspaper ethics. We have sought to make this service 

 timely, by seeking to diversify it among competing journals and by 

 investing it with an individual flavor, giving due regard to st.vle recpiire- 

 ments where known. Such a course has unavoidably involved a very 

 considerable increase in the purely physical part of the work; but we 

 believe the general appreciation shown has more than justified it. 



Today, we believe it can truly be said that the public of southern 

 California is not only virtually unanimously behind the conservation of 

 fish and game, but also that it has a better working idea of operating 

 j)i'obl('nis aiul difficulties, and is in closer sympathy with our eft'orts 

 than ever heretofore. 



LAW ENFORCEMENT. 

 In a work the success of which must be measured by the degree of 

 cooperation attained on the part of the people who first must be 

 awakened from their normal apathetic view to the realization of the 

 value of conservation, the importance of such results is easier to under- 

 estimate or to ignore than to embody in cold figures. However, the 

 statistical proof is not lacking. It is to be found in the steadily increas- 

 ing percentage of convictions to prosecutions, and in the materially 

 mounting average penalty per conviction. 



