Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission Volume 17 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...on the coast of the United States extends, as we have seen, over the months of July and August. If fishing in these months is closed the spawners are protected.1 This can be done, and would result in some good, but at either end the spawning females would be subjected to fire. First, there being no way to detect females which are ready to spawu, these would be killed in great numbers up to the beginuing of the period; then, after the close in September, if egg lobsters were captured aud the eggs removed and destroyed, the good which has been done would be partially nentralized. Protection to the immature lobster by regulating the construction of traps, making the distance between the lower slats sufficiently great to let out all the lobsters except those of the legal size--10i inches--is a measure which, if generally carried out, could not fail to be beneficial. The canning industry is undoubtedly responsible for a large share in the depletion of this fishery. It is operated in the spring, and for years has destroyed large 1 This period is well covered by the close period in Massachusetts, which extends from June 20 to September 20. numbers of immature lobsters and of mature females nearly ready to spawn. The canneries have been allowed to use smaller lobsters than those which are sent to market, and we are told that if further restricted they could not exist. Whether this is true or not 1 do not know, but it is surely folly to protect au animal in one direction and allow it to be destroyed in another. We'have now to speak of the artificial propagation of the lobster as a means of maintaining or increasing the supply. In 1893 I tried to point out some of the fundamental errors which rendered the methods of artificial propagation abortive. The objections whi...