CHAPTER XVI 



Salmon and trout supply — The falling off— Government 

 Fisheries Commission report — Proposed remedies — Minority 

 report — The United States difficulty — Mr. Babcock's comments 

 — Opinions of Steveston fishermen— Deadly salmon traps in 

 Puget Sound — The lesson ^of British Isles fisheries — Creation 

 of hatcheries — Future guardianship of fisheries — Mr. Wilmot's 

 report — Mr. Kelly Evans on revenue from fisheries — Wholesale 

 destruction of whitefish — Depleted lakes — Suggested remedies 

 — Angling as a recreation — Playing the game. 



IT is beyond question that salmon and trout 

 resources in British Columbia are enormous. 

 How far they are likely to continue is a question 

 which has passed out of the academic stage and has 

 become both practical and acute in the interests of 

 sport. In Canada, as in Great Britain and Ireland, 

 there are signs that the supply of fish is falling off. 

 The enormous takes of the earlier days are no longer 

 repeated in the Dominion. Lean years, the inevit- 

 able symptom of diminishing supply, are experienced 

 at rapidly recurring intervals. 



A Government Fisheries Commission has been 

 appointed to investigate the subject, and it is evident 

 from its reports that Canada, like Great Britain, has 

 been killing the goose with the golden egg. The 



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