Wheeler. — Commercial Fisheries. 207 



conditions, at certain times of the year and that their actions are 

 governed wholly by a natural instinct. In the beginning, God 

 created fish and a habitat and food supply for them. Since that 

 time Nature has been taking care of this work very efficiently 

 until foreign influences introduced by man have handicapped 

 the work. Some of the provisions of nature were that matured 

 fish should deliver their spawn under favorable conditions and 

 in suitable areas ; that the spawn should hatch, that food proper- 

 ties should be present in the water to take care of the little fry 

 during its babyhood, that enough of these fry should escape their 

 natural enemies and mature so as to return and deliver their 

 spawn. 



This process went on for ages successfully and would be 

 going on more effectively today were it not for the unnatural 

 conditions imposed by man. With the introduction by man of 

 ingenious types of gear and nets for catching fish, and the de- 

 struction of spawning beds and food properties in the streams 

 by pollution, the candle has been burning at both ends for the 

 past fifty years without much thought being given to replacing 

 the candle. We are now at the point where we realize that unless 

 something real is done in the way of rebuilding our fisheries, this 

 extremely valuable natural resource, over which we are but 

 custodians, will be depleted beyond restoration and the coming 

 generations will have been legally, morally and economically 

 wronged by our wilful wastefulness. 



The common-sense version of the situation is that first we 

 need to conserve a plentiful supply of matured stock for healthy 

 spawners; next we must provide suitable places, as nature did, 

 for these specimens to spawn in; we must make it possible for 

 them to reach these areas and protect them while they are there ; 

 we must protect the quality and quantity of our stream flow so 

 as to provide sufficient food for the young fry ; we must protect 

 these fry from unnatural enemies so that a sufficient num- 

 ber will mature and restock these same areas another year. 

 This applies to the natural propagation of shellfish equally as 

 well as to the production of the finny fish species. 



"Getting down to brass tacks," this means that the life of 

 our commercial fisheries depends on the elimination of such 

 pollution as is deleterious to fish or fish-food life. It means that 

 our stream flow must be augmented by reforestation of drainage 



