19ia AND FISHEKIES COMMISSION. 209 



where muskrats were plentiful. Tliat this should tend to an inicrease 

 of the mink in these areas cannot be doubted, and the fur of this creature 

 is so valuable that this could not but be considered a distinict advanta,ge. 

 The niuskrat and the mink are at the present time classed together in 

 the matter of an open season and it might appear that the curtailment 

 of tilie season sugested for niuskrat could with advantage be applied to 

 mink also, but the eases are not analogous. Undoubtedly the numbers 

 of the mink are decreasing and shortening of the season might be advan- 

 tageous, but the fur of the mink is primest during the early winter and 

 the question in regard to mink is ratlier whether it would not be more 

 advantageous to advance the season for mink to include the two latter 

 weeks of November than to prohibit its taking during the early winter 

 months. In any case, however, it is apparent that even if some objec- 

 tions to the suggested dates for the muskrat season were made on 

 account of the trapping of mink, they should not be allowed to carry 

 weight for the reasons that the change would be of the very greatest 

 benefit in regard to the maintenance of the supply of muskrats; that in 

 proportion to the amount of damage now effected in the ranks of the 

 muskrats by the prolonged open season the value of the mink fur secured 

 in such localities is but a trifling consideration ; and finally that the pro- 

 posed change should tend to increase the numbers of mink, at least in 

 ihi^ more populated sections of the Province. 



Trapping. 



In the previous section attention has been called to the general 

 diminution in the numbers of fur-bearing animals, and it would seem 

 that this diminution cannot but in large measure be attributed to the 

 system of trapping prevailing in the Province. Many years ago, when 

 the Hudson Bay Trading Company was practically the only firm trading 

 in furs on a large scale, the maintenance of the supply of animals was 

 more or less assured owing to the fact that the individual agent or fac- 

 tor in ctharge of a station or district viewed wdth concern anything that 

 would tend to a lessening of his receipts, and consequently, if the fur of 

 any particular variety of animal showed signs of becoming scarce in any 

 district, measures were as a rule taken to discourage its capture and thus 

 afford the species an opportunity to recuperate. The opening up of the 

 country, however, brought in its train the inevitable competition, and 

 numerous firms started in to exploit the fur in opposition to the Hudson 

 Bay Trading Company with the result that a ready market was at all 

 times open for almost any variety of fur, individual interest in the main- 

 tenan-ce of the supply gave way to rapacity and greed, and precautionary 

 or conservation measures passed from the thoughts of one and all 

 engaged in the business, becoming, in fact, only feasible of application 

 through the agency of the crown. Far and wide has the competition 

 forced its way until even in the most northerly extremes of provincial 

 18 F.C. 



