78 KEPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



to the highest bidder, who is compelled to pay in cash the exact value of 

 the fishing plant to the former lessee vacating it. The value of the 

 caviar production of the Caspian Sea alone is worth from ten to fifteen 

 million dollars per annum. 



According to Mr. C. W. Nash, the well-known icthyologist, there is 

 but one species of sturgeon in the waters of the Province, although this 

 scientific view is disregarded by the bulk of the commercial net fisher- 

 men, who have named the smaller specimens of the fish which are caught 

 in their nets the rock sturgeon, and claim that it is a distinct variet3^ 

 While, as before noted, the great lakes. Lake of the Woods and the more 

 accessible waters of the Province generally have been largely depleted 

 of sturgeon, there are nevertheless many localities in Ontario into which 

 the commercial net fishermen have not 3^et penetrated, where the stur- 

 geon still exists in comparative abundance, more particularly in the 

 northern and western portions of the Province. In these areas the chief 

 enemy of the fish would seem to be the Indian, who appears to be par- 

 ticularly partial to its fiesh, and places his nets across the channels it 

 must pass in its spawning movements, drying and smoking the flesh for 

 future consumption and making use of the tough skin for diverse pur- 

 poses. The value of the sturgeon is by no meansi likely to decrease in 

 the future, more especially in view of the fact that the demand for 

 caviar continues to increase and altogether to outstrip the supply, and it 

 would seem, therefore, that some measures should be taken to safeguard 

 such sturgeon fisheries in the Province as are still unimpaired. The 

 difficulty of perpetuating a fish which is pursued chiefly for its roe must 

 in any event be great, but in the case of the sturgeon this difficulty is 

 enhanced by the facts that the fish is a bottom feeder and peculiarly easy 

 to catch in confined water areas, and also that experience has demon- 

 strated the great difficulty of securing ripe spawn and ripe milt at the 

 same time, where hatchery operations are contemplated or attempted. 

 The value of the sturgeon fisheries, however, is so great that their 

 presence in the Province constitutes an asset which should not remain 

 unexploited, so that it would appear that no efforts should be spared to 

 restock waters already depleted of this fish, and that in the case of 

 unimpaired fisheries and subsequently in that of waters in which restock- 

 ing is successfully accomplished, some means should be sought whereby 

 exploitation of the fisheries may be effected to the greatest advantage of 

 the public without endangering the perpetuation of the fish in the 

 Province. 



Past experience has clearly demonstrated that in the hands of the 

 ordinary commercial net fishermen, no matter in what class of water, 

 the pursuit of the fish results in its rapid disappearance, and it would, 

 therefore, seem advisable to debar the net fishermen, totally or in part, 

 from profiting by the capture of this fish, for where there was little or 

 no profit to themselves to be derived from its capture, they could at least 

 be counted on not deliberately to pursue it. Then, in order to obtain for 



