REPORT OF THE COilillSSIOyERS sli 



this important work, with far-reaching benefit to the great fishing industries of the 

 Dominion. There are no less than thirty-five Dominion government hatcheries now 

 in operation, of which twenty-two are solely or mainly devoted to the propagation of 

 salmon, but, with the exception of one hatchery, at Windsor, Xova Scotia, where 

 experimental work with shad has been tried, nothing has been done by the Dominion 

 government to increase the supply of this valuable fish by means of modern methods 

 of fish culture. 



It must be recognized that the shad presents peculiar features in regard to its 

 eggs and development, and especially the obtaining of supplies of eggs. These 

 peculiar features necessitates more careful handling than is necessary in the case of 

 such fish as salmon, both in stripping or procuring the eggs and in the subsequent 

 handling of them in the hatchery. For example, parent salmon, after stripping, 

 are little the worse for the oi)eration and can be liberated into the rivers unharmed, 

 so that the same fish on returning year after year to their own rivers can be repeatedly 

 utilized for hatchery purposes. It is wholly different with the shad. The parent 

 fish, after being stripped, do not as a rule survive the operation and they will not bear 

 the handling which sahnon bear, with impunity, so that it is impossible to rely at all 

 for the futui^ supply of eggs upon the shad which have once been used for hatchery 

 purposes and liberated. It is plain, therefore, that every season, a shad hatchery 

 must rely upon a new incoming school of spawning shad. The experience of hatchery 

 officers in the United States fully demonstrates this pointr In a recent reiwrt" it is 

 stated— 



The operators at Catskill, on the Hudson river, return all the shad to the river, 

 after taken the spawn, as the close season is at that time in force, and the spawned 

 fish are seen to die almost before sinking out of sight in the river. Comparatively 

 few shad, however, will suffice to furnish ample spawn for hatchery purposes. The 

 eggs being small there is considerable diversity in the estimates by various authori- 

 ties of the number produced on an average by a female shad, 20,000 to 200,000 is the 

 quantity variously estimated. The late Mr. A. X. Cheney held that 30,000 would be 

 the average quantity, and that appears to be a fairly accurate estimate, though some 

 have claimed that 20,000 was the limit, and others have held that a shad produced 

 10 to 12,000 eggs for each pound of its total weight. 



The Connecticut Fish and Game Commissioners in their last report (1909) 

 emphasize the necessity of protecting the spawning schools, saying: — 



The diminishing number of shad caught during the past five years prove beyond 

 a question of a doubt that some means should be devised to increase the supply. It is 

 very well known that there are bui two sources of supply, natural and artificial, but if 

 a sufficient number of fish do not reach the spawning grounds it is impossible to 

 multiply from either source. 



And later in the same report they add the following grave statement regarding 

 the future of the hatchery work : — 



Your commission have* conducted the artificial propagation of shad on the Far- 

 mington river, as usual, during the past two years, leasing the 'Mud Seine fishing 

 place, also the Manley fishing place. 



The results are far from being satisfactory, under the conditions which have 

 become more pronounced, as the run of fish for spawning purposes has been practically 



• Professor E. E. Prince, Special Report on " The Culture of Shad," Department of 

 Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, 1902, p. 37. 



