Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1892 — Fishy but True. [ARTICLE]

Fishy but True.

Nothing could have come from the Census Bureau more opportunely than the bulletin relative to the fisheries »f the great lakes. It required sixtyone quarto pages for Mr. Porter to tell what he knows about our lake fisheries, and some of the 'facts reported will probably prove surprising to many readers. For instance, did any of them know that in the ten years ending with the census of 1890 there were 1,000,000,000 pounds of food fish, worth $25,000,000, taken out of the great lakes? We trow uot How many of them know that 0,896 persons were regularly employed in 1889 catching fish, and that 107 steamers and 3,876 other craft were used in the business? The money invested in fishing apparatus would overwhelm with astonishment the majority of the readers could they gaze upon it in a lump. The nets and traps were worth $823,919, and the total capital invested was $2,832,959. The yield of the fisheries in 18&9 was $2,615,784 at first hands. The rank of the. five lakes, determined by the value of their- yield, is, Erie, first; then Michigan, Huron and St. Clair, Superior, and Ontario, the actual increase in the value of the fisheries of Lake Erie being greater than that of all the others combined. The causes of increase of the value of fisheries are increase of population, the advent of emigrants from fishing and maritime countries of Europe, improved facilities of capture and transportation, and the practice of artificial propagation. The fisheries of Lake Ontario show a very marked decline since 1880, chiefly the result of legislation against commercial fishing 'in those waters.

The most abundant and valuable food fish found In the great lakes are herrings, a species of white fish quite distinct from the herrings of the West.

In 1889, 53,660,921 pounds of these were caught, valued at $717,061. i Lake trout show a great increase, j 64.62 per cent., since 1880, but the | "white iish comes next to the herring in abundance and popularity in the market. This fish, however, has suffered a very considerable decrease, 28.59 per cent., or 6,137,412 pounds, ! since 1880, the most serious decline ; being in Lake Michigan. Sturgeon j is also being diminished in the annual j yield, the falling off in ten years | having been nearly 63 per cent, from ' the catch of 1880. Sawdust from mills that covers up the spawning | and feeding grounds has much to do I with the decrease of fish in certain | fisheries, and it has become necessary I to enforce the laws that require mills to burn their sawdust and waste lumber. The use of nets with undersized meshes is also an evil that should be corrected. As the fisheries of the great lakes are the most extensive lake fisheries in the world, and represent a very important industry, it is of greatest consequence that they be wisely protected against the wasteful and injurious methods of the ignorant and vicious. Along the 3,500 miles of shore line covered by these fisheries there are doubtless many abuses that might be remedied easily if the law were enforced.