1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 7 



Ontario's whiteflsli, leaving but a small margin at a high figure for her 

 own citizens, will be discussed in a subsequent section; but the fact 

 remains, however, that the diminution in the annual catch of whiteflsh 

 has been so marked and persistent, in spite of increased and better appli- 

 ances, that it must be open to the gravest doubt whether, under the 

 present system of administration and regulation, the fisheries are not 

 being actually destroyed, instead of merely depleted, for it must be 

 remembered that to rehabilitate exhausted fisheries entails artificial 

 production on a large scale ; that artificial production on a large scale is 

 only possible when there is an abundant supply of parent fish, and that 

 the prolonged absence of schools of whitefish from certain of their former 

 habitats may result, under the adaptable laws of nature, in a transforma- 

 tion of conditions such as to render those waters no longer as suitable 

 for sustaining whitefish life. 



In the Interim Eeport of this Commission reference was made to the 

 sworn testimony, given to former Commissions, in regard to the immense 

 quantities of whitefi'sh that existed in the Great Lakes even forty and 

 fifty years ago. and amongst other instances was cited that of 90,000 

 whitefish having been landed on Wellington Beach in one single haul 

 of a net. What the average size of these fish may have been it is impos- 

 sible to tell, but it seems safe to assume that it cannot have been less 

 than approximately 2 lbs., thus making 180,000 lbs. of fish caught in a 

 few hours, with a comparatively small amount of net, and with compara- 

 tively little effort or expense, in one tiny fraction of the whitefish area 

 of Lake Ontario. When it is realized that the whitefish area of the 

 Canadian portion of Lake Ontario is roughly one thousand four hundred 

 square miles, some idea of the vast quantities of fish that must have 

 existed in these waters can be gained, and the deplorable diminution 

 that has occurred is very vividly brought home by a comprehension of 

 the fact that, in spite of a steady increase in the quantity of nets used, 

 for the fifteen- years, 1892-1006, the average yearly catch for the whole 

 1,400 square miles of Lake Ontario's Provincial whitefish fisheries only 

 just exceeded 250,000 lbs. Statistics are not available to show clearly 

 the exact percentage of decrease since the days when the whitefish were 

 so abundant, but, even if they were, it is doubtful whether they could 

 more clearly emphasize the fact that it has been colossal than the brief 

 comparison here made. 



The decrease, however, far from having yet reached its limit, con- 

 tinues marked throughout almost all the whitefish areas of the Provin- 

 cial waters, as the following short tables will show, and it is this alarm- 

 ing state of affairs which so strengthens the belief, as almost to make it 

 a certainty, that unless stringent remedial measures are applied without 

 delay, the fisheries wdll be, not merely depleted, but irredeemably 

 destroyed. 



