xlii SHAH Fishh:iiy coMMissioy 



wiped out and unless prompt actions are taken, wbereby a fair percentage of the shad 

 may reach the spawning: grounds, it will be useless to continue operations. 



The pr.'sent state of the shad fishery on our Atlantic coast waters demands that 

 effective methods of restoration be adopted without delay. In our investigations it 

 has been established beyond question that all the conditions for successfully carrying 

 oii,t the propagation of shad by artificial means are present in our Canadian shad 

 rivers. The Dominion possesses some of the most important shad breeding waters 

 on the Atlantic coast. The St. John. Petitcodiac, Shubenacadie, Stewiacke, Anna- 

 polis, Nictanx, and other rivers, all have fine spawning grounds where supplies of eggs 

 could be relied upon if adequate means for the protection of the ascending schools of 

 breeding fish were enforced. 



There are two methods of restoring a depleted fishery such as the shad fislicry. 

 viz. : 1st. Xatural spawning b,v breeding fish without man's interference. This 

 seemed to prove ample in the early days of shad fishing, as the annual supply of these 

 fish in our various rivers was amazingly large. 2nd. Artificial breeding, or hatching 

 of eggs in hatcheries. We are strongly of opinion that as the abundance of shad in 

 former years was due, as just pointed out, to nature's methods of restoration, the 

 present condition of the shad fishing industry imperatively demands that the spawn- 

 ing fish must be protected, that is a first requisite, whether reliance be placed upon 

 the natural method or artificial method. The ascending schools of spawning shad, 

 effectively protected, will, on the one hand, supply the natural beds with spawn as in 

 former days, or, on the other hand, will furnish the supply of eggs absolutely neces- 

 sary for successful operating shad hatcheries. 



It is useless to build shad hatcheries if the parent fish be not protected, as 

 experience in the United States has abundantly demonstrated. " For a few years 

 past the United States Bureau of Fisheries.'' declared the Rhode Island Commis- 

 sioners in their report of January, 1908, " has been unable to supply your Commission 

 with shad fry because of a scarcity of spawn.'" 



United States authorities have claimed that shad hatcheries were not commenced 

 early enough in the Eastern States, indeed three or four years ago the " Xew York 

 Fishing Gazette,' published an article on the ' Threatened Extinction of the Eastern 

 Shad,' from which we make the following extract : — 



Comparison with the work of developing the industry on the Pacific coast with 

 what has been done along the Atlantic has led to the belief that had congress stepped 

 in to the aid of the industry here before now the dimunition would have at least been 

 far less marked. The same authority that has m^de this observation has also jrointed 

 with some force to the fact that while the industry is threatened with extinction on 

 this coast, its original habitat, the exact reverse has been the case on the Pacific. On 

 the Hudson where the annual shad run numbered well into the hundreds of thousands 

 some years ago, the catch last year numbered but a few hundreds. 



The great advantage of hatcheries lies in the success with which practically all 

 the eggs can be incubated. ILitcheries guard against the waste of spawn which, no 

 doubt occasionally occurs under natural conditions. 



The establishment of hatcheries is often urged as the sole solution of the prob- 

 lem of the shad depletion, but other points must be borne in mind. Thus when the 

 State of Xorth Carolina, a few years ago, asked the United States Bureau of Fish- 

 eries, Washington, D.C., to investigate the decline of the shad fisheries, the Bureau, 



