APPENDIX VI 



Synopsis of the Report on the Otter Trawl Fishery, Submitted to 

 Congress by the United States Commissioner of Fisheries* 



The report on the otter trawl fishery recently submitted to Congress by 

 the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, sheds much light on a vex^d 

 question which has aroused a very bitter controversy in Eastern Canada. It 

 merits careful study and consideration from Canadian fisheries authorities. 



The Sundry Civil Appropriation acts approved by Congress on August 

 24th, 1912, authorized the Commissioner of Fisheries " to investigate the method 

 of fishing known as beam or otter trawling and to report to Congress whether 

 or not this method of fishing is destructive to the fish species, or is otherwise 

 harmful or undesirable." The granting of the foregoing authority was con- 

 sequent upon an agitation against the operations of steam trawlers similar to 

 that being carried on at the present time by the line fishermen of Nova Scotia. 

 The points in dispute were substantially the same in both instances. The repre- 

 sentations against and in defence of steam trawlers are quoted as follows, in 

 the form in which they are stated by Commissioner H. M. Smith of the Bureau 

 of Fisheries, in transmitting the report to the Secretary of Commerce: 



" On the one hand it was charged : 



(1) That the fishing areas where steam trawlers have already been oper- 

 ating have become seriously depleted of fish; 



(2) That the spawn or eggs of fish are destroyed by the trawl net when 

 being dragged along the bottom; 



(3) That immature fish are taken in very large numbers, which are killed 

 in the process of capture and are thrown away; 



(4) That valuable shellfish are destroyed in large numbers; 



(5) That steam trawlers carry on operations at night, as well as in the day- 

 time, and that, although an effort might be made to keep clear of the ordinary 

 fisherman's gear during daylight, no such effort would be made in the darkness, 

 owing to the invisibility of the buoys and other floating marks; 



(6) That it is not an uncommon thing for a steam trawler to come close 

 to ordinary fishing vessels and their dories, and, when the gear of the latter is 

 in the water and being overhauled, if fish appear plentiful, to sweep around the 

 spot and, with the trawlnet, carry away the gear with all the fish on the hooks ; 



(7) Further, that while steam trawling has been prohibited within the 

 territorial waters of Canada, such protection affords the inshore fishermen little 

 protection, as their gear is frequently set even long distances beyond territorial 

 waters, and it, of course, affords no protection whatever to the " bank " fisher- 

 men. 



" On the other hand it is urged : 



(1) That steam trawling is not an unduly destructive method of fishing, 

 as an evidence of which is the fact that it has been intensively carried on in the 

 North sea and other European waters for very many years without any diminu- 

 tion of the fisheries being apparent; 



*iSee report on The Otter Trawl Fishery, by A. B. Alexander, H. T. Moore and 

 W. C. Kendall. — United States Bureau of Fisheries, Document No. 186. 



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