Pr; 
DO REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 
REPORT OF DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCIAL FISHERIES. 
Lhe Honorable Board of Fish and Game Commissioners: 
Sirs: In our 1914-1916 biennial report we told of the increasing 
importance of California’s commercial fisheries and pointed out some of 
the main things which should be done by the state if it were to encourage 
the development and at the same time safeguard the future of its 
fisheries. Most of the new laws suggested in that report were passed at 
the last session of the legislature with the result that the state’s com- 
mercial fisheries patrol and conservation work has been put on a firm 
and substantial basis. This move was not made any too soon, for the 
enormous increase in the development of certain fisheries is making it 
difficult to obtain the information necessary for intelligent supervision. 
The most important fisheries work a state can do is to gather complete 
and accurate statistical data and our principal efforts have been along 
statistical lines. 
Statistics of the Fisheries. 
To facilitate the collection of fisheries statistical data, the legislature 
of 1915 passed a law requiring all fish dealers and packers to report 
monthly to the Fish and Game Commission the quantities of each species 
caught. As amended at the last session of the legislature, this law also 
requires dealers and packers to keep on file, for inspection, carbon copies 
of the receipts issued to the fishermen, in order that the Fish and Game 
Commission may collect more detailed information as to the catch of 
individual boats. Working under this law, we have gathered and com- 
piled the data of the eatch of each variety of fish. These figures have 
been published regularly in our quarterly magazine, CALIFORNIA Fis 
AND GAME. 
The data collected in this manner have been of the greatest assistance 
in aiding the commission in its conservation work, and although the data 
are more accurate than those collected by other states, they are not 
accurate enough or detailed enough for the kind of fisheries work a 
state or a government should do. The reports by dealers or packers are 
often carelessly made and are apt to be inaccurate and incomplete. 
Dealers are not required to keep the copies of the receipts issued to 
fishermen for a longer period than six months, and even if they were 
required to hold them for a longer period there is no way of insuring © 
their completeness nor of the commission acquiring from them the 
records of individual boat catches without a prohibitive amount of work. 
