xii SHAD FISHEKY COMMISSION 



trust that the Commissioners appointed last year, and who collected information on 

 this matter may be able to suggest some remedy. 



Again, Inspector R. A. Chapman, Moncton, N.B., said, in his report, 1908-9: — 



More of these shad in the past few years come up into our fresh water streams, 

 at the head of the Bay of Fundy to spawn then previously; but no real improvement 

 can take place with this fishery until a close time is made and enforced while they 

 are spawning. I do hope that the recent commission may lead to something along 

 these lines. 



Decline of Shad Fishery a Loss to the Country. 



At the sittings of the Commission important witnesses laid stress on the serious 

 loss to the whole community resulting from the present deplorable condition of this 

 once important industry. 



The following extracts from the evidence abundantly^ demonstrate the fact, and 

 in this prevailing opinion the members of this Commission fully concur. 



Prominent merchants, fish dealers and fishermen united in the view, as one 

 leading witness said that "the decline of the shad is a great loss to the country. 

 One or two boats taking 200 or 300 shad at a tide was important. Fourteen hundred 

 have been taken at one tide and that meant quite a little cash value indeed, $50 to 

 $100 per day to the community." 



Another witness asserted that " the fishery was a means of circulating an 

 immense lot of money, because country people came in and bought hundreds 

 of shad before breakfast. They took one or two barrels each and bought for 

 their neighbours, so there was a great sale. I often had my pockets then full of ten 

 cent pieces. I built boats and greatly feel the loss; the decline is a calamity." 



Again, a witness informed the Commission that the " Five Islands people made 

 their living shipping shad and potatoes, and got winter supplies from their earnings, 

 as very little lumbering was done then. All the way along the coast from Economy 

 it was their mainstay for the greater part of the people, and some made a pile of 

 money." 



Other extracts from the evidence .aiven by vario\is witnesses may be added: — 



The rivers have been overfished and the natural supply cut off. To the dealer 

 the decline made great havoc with his business, it was a calamity in our financial 

 affairs on this shore. We can hope for nothing unless there is an entire cessation 

 of the destruction of fish and after that the proper regulation of the annual catch. 

 Though I never fished in my life, my grandfather fished shad; but it is the concern 

 of everybody. A radical measure only will work any real good; 



I would like to see shad fishing restored, as there were fully sixty farmers, I 

 think, fishing forty years ago. They would catch from ten to twenty-five barrels in 

 a season with a twelve fathom net. The net was sixty meshe.s deep. 



The shad is a valuable fish, and there should he something done to restore it. 

 Shad have become so scarce that people here have dropped it altogether, they can't 

 get them. 



It was a great industry formerly and I packed seventy-four half-barrels of shad 

 in four days out of eight hauls. It would be a source of much profit to the people 

 here if it were restored again. 



The shad had declined to a serious degree. The restoration of the shad would 

 be a public benefit of the gTeatest moment. The fishery gave employment to a great 



