Seventh Annual Report 



OF THE 



Game and Fisheries Department of Ontario 



To the Honourable J. 0. Reaume, 



Minister of Public Works. 



SiR^ — I have again the honour to submit for your consideration the Eeport 

 of the Department of Game and Fisheries for the twelve months ending Slst 

 October, 1913, which 1 venture to hope may have your approval. 



The Statistics, Eeports of Inspectors, Wardens, Overseers and Deputy Wardens, 

 and other matters connected with the administration of the Department will appear, 

 as in the past, and I trust they will receive the generous appreciation and approval 

 which-you have accorded those of past years. 



Laws and Regulations. 



The Laws and Regulations have been fairly well observed during the year, 

 with the exception of a few whose code of ethics is not in accordance with the 

 Golden Rule; in fact they appear to believe in those that cause the liberty of so 

 many to be curtailed by the intervention of iron bars. These characters, who 

 have not a proper conception of right and wrong make use of every possible subter- 

 fuge to enable them to evade the conditions of their respective licenses. These 

 lawless, selfish characters — it would be a libel on the rest of mankind to allude 

 to them as rnen — not only defraud the Government, but also injure the large 

 majority of honest, law-abiding fisihermen, who are conforming to the conditions 

 of their licenses. There are two ways of dealing with such characters; either by 

 cancelling their licenses or withdrawing the concessions so grossly abused and 

 enacting more stringent laws and regulations. The latter would unfortunately 

 result in the punishment of the innocent for the fault of the guilty. While the 

 Government and your Department have heretofore refrained from using extreme 

 measures against the violators of the Game and Fishery Laws, yet, in the interest 

 of the public and the law abiding fishermen, it is imperative that these unwise 

 and persistent lawbreakers should, in future, receive without let or hindrance the 

 extreme punishment their wrong doing deserves. The unwise and destructive policy 

 of abolishing close seasons for whitcfish still prevails in the most valuable, and 

 what would be the most productive fresh water lake in the world if common sense 

 methods and nature's perfect plan of reproduction were observed and respected. 

 Last November I procured a large tub of whitefish, supposed to be properly c^^red 

 for human consumption ; in a week or ten days they became discolored ; a week later 

 the entire contents were putrid. These fish would average at least five pounds each, 

 and had been taken from the best spawning grounds in our system of lakes, during 

 the month of November, when they were fnll of spawn and unfit for food. Tt it< 

 impossible to conjecture the millions or even billions of eggs which if not so fool- 



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