1976 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



THE PRESIDENT: May I ask one question. Sir. A close season has 

 the special purpose of protecting the spawning period ? 



SENATOR ROOT: That is natural. 



THE PRESIDENT : And how long is the spawning season ? Can you 

 tell me how long it is ? 



SENATOR ROOT: I suppose but a few weeks. Certainly it does not 

 last all winter. 



THE PRESIDENT: Nor all summer. Probably not as long as from 

 the 10th May to the 20th October? 



SENATOR ROOT: Certainly not. Of course, different fish spawn at 

 different times. My understanding is that the herring spawn in May. 

 Mr. Lansing says they spawn in May, and that the spawning period 

 lasts about a month. 



Now, I will refer to purse seines. A purse seine is a kind of seine 

 that is adapted to use by vessels, as distinguished from the seine 

 adapted for use by men who can draw the* seine on the shore. It is 

 simply a seine with a cord running through rings at the bottom, so 

 that when fishermen have to use it who have not any bottom to use 

 it on, who cannot go ashore and draw their seines so that the fish 

 will be kept in by being drawn along the bottom, they can make a 

 bottom for themselves by pulling in the foot of the seine. That is a 

 simple little device to enable vessels that cannot go to shore to utilize 

 seines. 



Upon this general subject of "seines," I would like to call your 

 attention to the report of Mr. Joncas, read at the International Fish- 

 eries Exhibition in London in 1883. Mr. Joncas, I believe, was a 

 Canadian. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : A Canadian, I understand. 



SENATOR ROOT: At p. 606 of the United States Counter-Case Ap- 

 pendix he tells about the implements used. He says: 



" ' The nets used by our fishermen are generally thirty fathoms 

 longby five or six wide.' 



"They are set in the evening, and in the morning early the fisher- 

 men visit them, take out the fish, and if necessary take the net ashore 

 to clean it. Generally, in the spring, when the fishing is good, each 

 net will take from five to ten barrels of fish during one night. 



fc * But there is a much more expeditious mode of taking herrings 

 than with nets, and that is with seines. Seines for this purpose must 

 be of large dimensions, say from one hundred to one hundred and fifty 

 fathoms long, by from eight to eleven fathoms wide, with brace? of 

 two hundred fathoms long. These seines are expensive and require 

 many hands to work them, so that it is not every fisherman that can 

 have one. There are also the purse seines which are used to fish the 

 herrings on the banks, sometimes twenty and thirty miles from the 

 shore." 



Now, you will see that all this legislation, while directed at the 

 seine, is protection of those on shore. The fishermen Sir James 



