UNUTILIZED FISHERIES RESOURCES 61 



in such large quantities and caught in season and out of season, there 

 are still great quantities of them and they seem to be as common as 

 ever. Will this reduction plant lessen the number of dog-fish? If 

 it is not decreasing the number of dog-fish in our waters it cannot be 

 serving a useful purpose. Are there any statistics of show that these 

 plants have reduced the number of these fish? 



Prof. Prince : The dog-fish is not really a very productive fish. It 

 produces from six to eight or ten young at a time and the best 

 authorities are of opinion that it does not reproduce more than three 

 times a year, which would give us, say, thirty young per annum for 

 each female. That is a very small production of young among fish. 

 But each of these is so well provided and can look after itself so well 

 that there is practically no loss and a female lobster producing from 

 10,000,000 to 30,000,000 young every year may not produce thirty 

 adults. , The destruction of young lobsters is so great, so many fish 

 feed on them, and the percentage of loss is so enormous, that the result 

 of the production of the female lobster is probably not very much in 

 excess of the production of a single female dog-fish. Therefore, in 

 considering whether the reduction works are doing any good, one must 

 take into account that they destroy so many females every year, and 

 that thus they are destroying so many parents for the future. In the 

 report of the Advisory Board's Committee we estimate the number 

 of dog-fish that the works have probably exterminated. Personally, I 

 do not think the reduction works will solve the whole dog-fish ques- 

 tion. A few years ago the Dept. of Marine and Fisheries published 

 a report on the dog-fish pest, and I gave eight or ten suggestions 

 as to how the dog-fish plague might be met. I would like to see all 

 those methods tried together that we might have some assault made 

 upon this terrible enemy. 



The works, so far as they go, must have done some good, and, 

 under a better system, they can do far more. I should say that in my 

 report on the dog-fish I did not suggest reduction works. I suggested 

 a number of other methods. I proposed that we should have a dozen 

 patrol boats along the Atlantic coast with ten to thirty men on each 

 and that these boats should be employed night and day in capturing 

 all the dog-fish they could. The men could be employed for a short 

 time. The dog-fish come on in great hordes for a short time and then 

 disappear, and one of my suggestions was that the patrol boats might 

 be employed like a fleet making war upon these enemies. I made 

 other suggestions and should like to see them all tried. 



Mr. Feii^ding: How far has the production of fish meal been 

 attempted in Canada? I am rather interested in that particular 



