DOMINION OF CANADA FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES (SEVENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL FISHERIES REPORT OF THE DOMINION) FOR THE YEAR 1944-45 OTTAWA EDMOND CLOUTIER PRINTER TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY 1948 To His Excellency „Major-General the Right Honourable the Earl of Athlone, K.G., P.C., G.C.B., D.S.O., .A.D.C., Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief of the DoMinion. of Canada MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: I have the honour herewith, for the information. of Your Excellency and the Parliament of Canada, to present the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries, being the Seventy-eighth Annual Fisheries Report for the Dominion. I have the honour to be, Your Excellency's most obedient servant, H. FRANCIS G. BRIDGES, Minister of Fisheries. DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES, Ottawa, October 1, 1945. 50160-1i CONTENTS PAGE DEPUTY MINISTER'S REPORT COVERING- Review of Commercial Fishing Operations - 7 Fisheries Export Trade 12 Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission 13 International Fisheries Commission (Halibut) 14 Fur Seal Returns 16 Fish Culture 17 Fishing Bounty 17 Whitefish Inspection 18 APPENDICES 1. Report of the Chief Supervisor of Fisheries, Western Division 19 2. Report of the Chief Supervisor of Fisheries, Eastern Division 48 3. Report of the Director of Fish Culture 55 4. Report on Oyster Culture 84 5. Report of the Fisheries Engineer 92 6. Report of the Canned Fish Inspection Laborstory,- Pacific 99 7. Report of the Canned Fish Inspection Laboratory, Atlantic 100 8. Departmental Financial Statement for the Year 1943-44 103 5 REPORT OF THE DEPUTY MINISTER - To the Hon. H. FRANcis G. BRIDGES, M.P., Minister of Fisheries. Sm,—I have the honour to submit the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Department of Fisheries, which covers the fiscal year 1944-45 and is the Seventy-eighth Annual Report on the Fisheries of the Dominion. For reasons of economy, the report, like those of other recent years, has been kept to smaller limits than the annual reports issued in some earlier periods. The condensa- tion consists in giving lessened space to matters of detail. The report takes up such matters as the results of commercial fishing operations in the Dominion during the calendar year 1944, exportation of products of the fisheries during the year, operations of international fisheries commissions of the Pacific coast, and so on. Appendices to the report take up several branches of the Dominion's work in some detail though here, too, detail has been kept to smaller limits than in some other years. These appendices are:— Reports of the Chief Supervisors of Fisheries. Report on the Fish Culture Work of the Department. Report on Oyster Culture and the Further Development of Oyster Farming. Report of the Fisheries Engineer. Reports as to the Operations of the Fish Inspection Laboratories. The Annual Financial Statement of the Department. COMMERCIAL FISHERIES IN 1944 Throughout 1944 there was continuation of the upward trend in fisheries production value that had been evident in earlier war years. In result, the total marketed value of the 1944 catch exceeded $89,600,000, much the largest dollar return in the history of the Dominion's fishing industry. The explanation of the continued process of increase is to be found, of course, in the continued great demand for fisheries products and in firmness of prevailing prices for such goods, not in greater production. As for production, however, it may well be emphasized here that the fishing industry deserves high credit for what it has done in maintaining wartime output at approximately the pre-war level in spite of a good many difficulties arising out of the times. The 1944 in-crease over the marketed value total for the preceding year was some $4,000,000. As compared with the dollar return in 1938, the last full year of peace, 1944 showed a gain of about 120 per cent and in comparison with the largest value total recorded in any peacetime period of the past-- slightly less than $56,400,000 in 1926—the 1944 figures shoveed an increa.se of nearly 60 per cent. Complete and detailed figures relative to Canada's fisheries production, size of working force in the fishing industry, number of vessels and boats and processing plants and other like data, are given in the annual publication known as Fisheries Statistics of Canada. That report is prepared by the Depart- ment. and the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, jointly, with the collaboration of 7 8 DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES provincial services in those parts of the country where fisheries administration is in the hands of the provinces—Quebec, Ontario, and the three Prairie Provinces. Since the statistical paper gives these detailed data the present paragraphs dealing with 1944 operatina results will only concern themselves, except in a few instances, with •production in the sea fisheries of British Columbia and the Maritime Provinces, which are under the Department's administration. That is, the same thing as saying that the comments here are concerned with fisheries ivhich ordinarily produce more than four-fifths of the country's annual landings of fish and shellfish. Most of the remaining one-fifth comes from the freshwater fisheries, >although it includes important quantities of fish and shellfish taken by Quebec sea fishermen. Working Force and Industrial Production in 1944—Combined landings from the sea fisheries of the Maritime Provinces and. British Columbia in the calendar. year 1944, something over 994,800,000 pounds, were smaller than the 1943 catch but they brought the fishermen; an increased return in dollars and the finished products were worth, as marketed, $73,100,000, a gain of more than $4,975,000. (In general, round figures only are being used in this review.) Solar as money. return to the fishermen was concerned—that is, the value of the catch as landed—the $39,360,000 total showed an in,crease of nearly $3,860,000. In making the catch nearly 38,600 fishermen were at work or over 1,300 More tha.n in 1943. Plant employees who prepared the catch for market, and thus shared in creating the marketed value return for the year, nmxtbered 15,450, an increase of something less than 1,200. Capital equipment in use, including vessels, boats, gear, plant and machinery, represented an investment of $56,- 800,000, which was $4,200,000 and more above the. 1943 figure. In number of fishermen,, n,umber of plant workers, and capital investment there was an increase in each of the four provinces. Catch, by Provinces--Shown by provinces, in round figures, the year's sea catch and landed value were as follows:— - Catch Taken Landed Value Clots. $ British Columbia 4,583,200 17,333,300 Nova Scotia 3,345,500 14,851,300 New Brunswick .1,747,300' 5,377,100' Prince Edward Island 272,200 1,797,300 New Brunswick commercial fishermen also caught 4,700 hundredweights of freshwater fish which had a landed value of $27,500. In Nova Scotia there was catch increase, as compared with 1943 landings, but in each of the other provinces decrease. As for landed value, there was gain in Nova Scotia and gain, too, both in New Brunswick and British Columbia, notwithstanding the falling off in landings in the latter provinces. There were catch and landed value decreases in Prince Edward Island. Marketed value increased in the first three provinces but not in Prince Edward Island. Bigger catches of cod and other groundfish and increase in herring landings had most to do with Nova Scotia's gain in production. In the main, New Bruns:wick's lowered catch figures were due to, smaller landings of herring and sardines. Reduction in hake and cod fares explain most of the drop in Prince Edward Island total. One noteworthy result of the year's fishing in the Maritimes was an increase in lobster catch, which will be referred to further in a later paragraph. Principal factors contributing to the decrease in Pacific Coast catch were the reductions in the quantities of pilchards and salmon that were taken. In volume, the pilchard decrease was much the greater, in what it represented in dollars the salmon decrease the more important, since salmon are much more valuable fish than pilchards. Even at that, however, some stiffening in prices REPORT OF THE DEPUTY MINISTER 9 brought the marketed value of the diminished salmon catch about $880,000 above the 1943 mark, or up to more than $15,620,000. Apropos of these catch reductions it may be pointed out that fluctuations in production from year to, year take place in all fisheries. They may result from various factors or from a combination of factors operating at the same time. Smaller catch from a fishery in some particular year may turn out to have been indicative of a lessening in abundance of stock but it is not necessarily an indication of that kind. Catch comparisons covering only a year or two of the operations in a fishery are not to be relied upon as a basis for conclusions as to changes in abundance in the fishing stock; much more study than that is required to reach sound conclusions. As for pilchards, sharp rise and fall in the curve of apparent availability in British 'Columbia waters is quite a common state of affairs. Study has not yet .been carried far enough to find the explanation of this condition. In the case of salmon, fluctuations in the size of the runs have been much less pronounced than the ups-and-downs in the pilchard fishery but they have been evident over the years, and evident, of course, not only in British Columbia areas but elsewhere as well—in the big Alaska fishery, for instance.