DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES,

33
To permanently improve and maintain a good supply of salmon and other
anadromous fish, and to counteract the loss sustained by the drying up of many of
the smaller streams, consequent upon cutting awry the forests, as the country is
advancing in agricultural development, there are two lines of action clear and plain,
calling for departmental attention.
First.—To open every dam, and supply every natural fall obstructing the ascent
of fish to the inland waters of Canada, with good and efficient fihways.
Second.—To increase the quantity of young fish by artificial culture, at least ten
times its present production, which can be done without materially adding to the
cost of present operations. With these improvements, all the salmon the people
catch during open season, or up to the 15th August, will not check the increase, as
the great body of spawning fish enter the rivers and ascend thorn after the fall rains
swell the streams. They then have pure water and are seldom troubled by poachers.
There are exceptions on a few streams where these fish do not enter the rivers or
estuaries until the fall months ; such streams are confined chiefly to those which
empty into the Straits of Northumberland.
The Clyde River, which was opened on the fall of 1879, still continues to improve,
in the face of much fishing, the present year's catch being 3,975 lbs. of salmon
and 130 .barrels of alewives, which at market prices, as taken out of t'e water, will
pay the interest at 6 per cent. on $25,000, and the cost of the fishway, producing
these results, was less than $200, clearly proving the importance of fish ways. The
same increase is taking place wherever good fishways have been put in the dams
six to eight years ago.
MACKEREL
Have fallen off nearly one-half below the catch of 1887, the yield during the
year aggregating but 47,806 barrels, against 93,426 barrels last year.
The following table gives the annual catch in this province for the years mdicated,
and although there has been a large falling off in the quantities gathered
during the past two years, I do not think we have any reason to fear a permanent
decline in the supply upon our coasts. Mackerel are controlled I i their movements,
by water temperattlre and by their searc a for food. They spawn wherever they
may happen to be located, when ready to deposit their ova, which, just as is the
case with spawn of almost all other edible sea fish, floats near the urface of the
water while hatching; hence the untold myriads of birds upon the surface of the
aea, as well as fish and sea animals, are continually feeding upon it, and also upon
Ihe young fish when hatched. Storms and gales of wind, besides, drive quantities of
it upon the beaches and rocks where it of course perishes. In these natural ways,
more fish life is annually destroyed, a thousand times over, than by human agency is.
possible.
Year. Bbls. Year. Bbls.
18t9 4,575 1879...... ... 101,559
1870 85,254 1880 126,432
1871. 228,152 1881 63,373
1872 115,631 1882 73,702
1873. 141,005 1883 88,688
1874. 122,250 1884 129,680
1875 91,232 1885 85,313
1876. 70,964 1886. 102,526
1877 ....... 113,638 1887 . 93,426
1878 129,698 1888 47,806
By dividing the catch into two periods of ten years each, the yield has been per
annum, for the former period, 114,439 barrels, and for the latter 91,242 barrels, a
decline of 23,197 barrels per annum; but by leaving out the catch of 171 from the
former period which was an unusual large one, and the catch of 1888 from the latter
period which was a very small one, we find that the average catch for the former