6 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



(8) Questions relating to the management of the public parks and 

 forest reserves, especially in so far as the tourist sportsman traffic is con- 

 cerned ; 



(9) All matters and things relating to fish and game which may 

 assist in the efficient management of the Game and Fisheries Branch of 

 the public service in Ontario, or be of economic advantage to the Pro- 

 vince. 



The Commercial Fisheries. 

 Depletion of the Fisheries. 



It is hardly necessary for your Commissioner to call to your atten- 

 tion the fact tliat the commercial fisheries of the Great Lakes are rapidly 

 dwindling, for scarcely a week elapses but that the lamentable diminu- 

 tion in one or other of the once flourishing fishin^g areas is strikingly 

 recorded in the daily presB. The grave significance of this state of affairs 

 is not yet fully appreciated by the general public, mainly for the reason 

 that, owing to conditions which will be hereinafter more fully discussed, 

 the citizens of Ontario have not been educated to the economic value to 

 themselves of the great fisheries lying at their very doors, or to the value 

 of fish food as a factor in the daily dietary. The population of the Pro- 

 vince, however, is rapidly increasing; the price of food rising higher and 

 higher ; and it is impossible to conceive that the day can be very far dis- 

 tant when the citizens of Ontario will awaken from their present 

 'lethargy, require from those in authiority an accounting for the dissipa- 

 tion of their once splendid fisherieis, and with no uncertain voice demand 

 that the most drastic measures be forthwith adopted to save for them- 

 selves and for their children what is left of their fisheries, and, if pos- 

 sible, to restore them to something of their former prolificness. 



There are still living in the Province men who can well recall the 

 days when the waters of even Lake Ontario were literally teeming with 

 whitefish, and to anyone hearing or reading their accounts it must read- 

 ily occur that this magnificent fish, had it only been properly conserved, 

 should have assumed in a populous Ontario the economic role of the 

 deep-sea herring in the English markets. What a high-class, wholesome 

 and, at the same time, cheap fish can mean to the welfare of the poorer 

 classes of a populous community can hardly be over-estimated, a fact 

 which can be attested to by anyone who has had experience of or even 

 visited the more crowded areas of any of the greater English cities. 



As a food the whitefish is, in all probability, the superior of the 

 herring; the areas which it has inhabited are vast, and there can be little 

 doubt but that under wise regulation, even without artificial assistance, 

 the annual crop of this most excellent fish should have been sufficient 

 to supply all the wants of the citizens of Ontario for a considerable time 

 to come, while at the same time yielding a fair margin for export trade. 

 That a neighboring nation should be consuming the great bulk of 



