26 



the legal season is held in cold storage during the period of warm 

 weather until it can be marketed later in. the year with safety. Con- 

 siderable quantities of fish are indeed sold during the close season 

 on the ground that they are fish shipped from other provinces where 

 the close seasons do not coincide with the Manitoba close seasons. 

 We are of opinion that this state of things is bound to lead to abuse 

 as it is impossible for officers to distinguish between the fish of the 

 same kinds from different provinces, and the only effective method 

 of dealing with this abuse is to wholly prohibit the sale of a particu- 

 lar kind of fish during the period prohibited by law in the Province 

 of Manitoba. We think it necessary, as we have already stated, that 

 dealers having legally-caught fish in cold storage should be allowed 

 to hold them in storage under authority of a written permit from the 

 Inspector of Fisheries. If such a system were carried out, it would 

 secure that fish illegally caught in close season could not so 

 readily be possessed or sold. The Commission, when visiting the 

 fish markets and the fish dealers' stores in Manitoba, found that 

 there was a regular sale of fish in the close season, and that the law 

 was indeed being openly and widely violated; but the excuse offered 

 was that some of the fish so detected had been shipped from Ontario 

 where the law allowed them to be caught and handled at a time when 

 they were prohibited in the Province of Manitoba. The strict 

 enforcement of the close season would, of course, involve this, that 

 no whitefish whatever could be sold for two months, from September 

 15 to November 19, and that no pickerel, or dore, could be sold from 

 the 15th of April to the 19th of June each year. * 



TULLIBEE CLOSE SEASON ABOLISHED. 



In the regulations prior to 1907, tullibee and lake trout were 

 included in the whitefish close season, as has been the case for many 

 years, and the capture of this fish has, therefore, been prohibited 

 from October 5 to December 15; but in our interim report, section 

 9, subsection 2, page 9, we pointed out that a tullibee close season 

 was unnecessary and any reference to that fish be eliminated from 

 the close season regulations. "JVe did so for several reasons, amongst 

 ethers: (1) because tullibee are extremely abundant, and, indeed, 

 are superabundant, and, while other fish have decreased in recent 

 years, they have shown not only no decline but a considerable growth 

 in abundance; hence no special protection seems, at present, neces- 

 Tullibee not sary for this fish. (2) They are a fish not held in much estimation, 



esteemed. They are not a good quality of fish for the market or for ordinary 



food purposes. They are very frequently affected by parasites, 

 and vast numbers of this fish show the back perforated by a 

 parasitic worm, this parasitic worm being especially noticeable 

 in winter, though the members of the Commission examined speci- 

 mens at the fishing stations taken during the summer fishing which 

 are full of these whiteish parasitic organisms. There is a sale for 

 tullibee in United States markets when the herring are scarce, but 

 in a general way they are regarded as a poor food fish. There is 

 little demand for them, and they bring very low prices, and it is not 

 justifiable to enforce a close seoson to keep up their abundance. We 



* The Legislature of the State of Nebraska, it is stated, is taking steps 

 to prohibit the storage of fish during close season, taken from the public 

 waters. The proposed law will also prevent the importation of fish into 

 the State during the closeseason, vide N. Y. Fish Gazette xxvii., 6. 1911. 



