DESPATCHES, EEPOETS, COERESPONDENCE, ETC. 331 



Mr. W. H. Venning, late Inspector of Fisheries for New Brunswick, 

 in his report for 1886, Third Annual Report of the Department of 

 Fisheries, 1886, Appendix No. 4, says : 



Tliere seemsgood grounds for the fears expressed by many of the old Qsher- 

 men that the general use of purse seines in Bay of Chaleurs will be very 

 destructive to the mackerel and herring fisheries. There is no doubt that the 

 destruction of young mackerel along the American coast from the use of theso 

 seines is enormous, and the same destruction will probably follow their general 

 use by our fishermen. Mr. B. P. Chadwick, of Bradford, Mass., who has been 

 investigating this matter with great care for many years, thus writes Professor 

 Baird, head of the United States Fish Commission : 



" The present method of our fishermen in seining mackerel is such that while 

 taking over 500.000 barrels of good, sizeable fish, it causes a total destruction of 

 over 1,000,000 barrels of young fish that have grown to one-third the usual size 

 of fully matured fish. Could this number of fish be protected and caught when 

 full grown the amount would be 3,000,000 barrels ; and at the present price of 

 No. 1 mackerel ($15 per barrel), the amount of $45,000,000 worth of fish food 

 is no small item to our people. The hay crop of Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- 

 mont and Massachusetts is 3,150,000 tons. The crop has a market value of 

 $37,800,000. Now if the farmers should destroy the hay crop annually the effect 

 upon agriculture in these States would be disastrous; and yet the present 

 method of seining mackerel destroys $45,000,000 worth of food-fish, and scarcely 

 a voice is raised against it. Mackerel vessels carry from two to four seines 

 each. I have know a single seine destroy 150 barrels of young mackerel in a 

 day in the taking of 30 barrels of marketable fish. If one seine does injury 

 to this amount in a single day, what must be the effect of using the seines of a 

 mackerel fleet of 400 vessels for ninety days? The ocean is large and mackerel 

 are prolific. The spawn of a single mackerel is nearly 500,000. Were it not 

 for these two facts the end of mackerel fishing would soon be reached. As it 

 is, the catch of No. 1 fish is small, there being scarcely any in the market, and 

 these few selling at an exorbitant price. This condition is caused by the 

 destruction of the young fish." 



Inspector Bertram, Cape Breton, in his report for 1888, Fifth 

 Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries, 1888, p. 49, says : 



Herring has proved the staple branch of the Cape Breton fisheries for the 

 year 1888. With two or three minor exceptions, the herring fishery turned out 

 remunerative to a degree that went far to compensate for the loss in other 

 branches. Considering the value of herring as an article of profitable foreign 

 commerce, and as a staple of food for home consumption, the wanton de- 

 struction of thousands of barrels of fish on the coasts of this island annually, 

 thrown back in the sea by mackerel seiners, is a most serious matter in the 

 economy of one of the most valuable natural resources of this country. This 

 point will be found more fully referred to in this report under the heading 

 of " Destructive Methods of Fishing." 



DESTRUCTIVE METHODS OF FISHING AND WASTE OF FISH FOOD. 



This is a subject which requires serious consideration and prompt 

 action in the application of prohibitive measures, if our present coast 

 fisheries are to be saved from extinction. The two principal agencies 

 in this work of destruction and waste are : 



Purse seining and trawling. 



Against these two agencies of mischief our boat fishermen send 

 up a united and universal protest. With fishermen of the United 

 States and those of the Provinces, hand line fishing is now superseded 

 by the use of seines and trawls. Both are destructive to fish, and the 

 numbers now engaged in these methods of fishing are greatly in ex- 

 cess of all reasonable demands on the utmost possible fish-producing 

 powers of this or any other coast of equal extent 



