The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-30
GULF COAST PEOPLE WANT PROTECTION Fish Are Being Hauled Away
 By Tons THE LAW Is INEFFECTIVE  Commissioner Wallace Points Out That Mobile and Baldwin County Defeated Measure for Their
 Own Benefit.
THE LAW IS INEFFECTIVE

Montgomery, July 29.-(Special)- John H. Wallace, Jr, state game ana fish commissioner, has received word that a fleet of schooners is taking tons of fish day from the waters of the bay off Coffee Island and carrying them to Louisiana and Mississippi to be ground up and made into fertilizer. Mooile people have become very much alarmed over the practice and are urging MT. Wallace to do what he can to stop the practice.
 It is brought out that the boats have seines about 1500 feet in length and that they sake as much as two tons tt haul. Everything from minnow to the largest fish Is taken, so that not only are the waters being depleted for the present, but for the future. A large boat with windass is used to haul the fish in after being captured, and the seines often drag up immense loads of all kinds of the water inhabitants. which are loaded into the holds and talk en to the crushers
 The MODlle ana BaluWln cOuHly members of the legislature had these counties and the salt waters that ebb and flow exempted from the Alabama laws, so that it is not likely the game commissioner can reach them. How ever, he will do what he can to stop the practice. and if nothing more. hopes to arouse a sentiment that will result in a more stringent law at the next ses- sion of the legislature.
 MT. Wallace Talks.
 Apropos of this matter, Commissioner Wallace gave out the following state ment:
 Ut is a most regretable fact that under the plea that it was a matter of local legislation that the members of the Mobile and Baldwin county delega- tfon persisted in presenting amend ments to our bill for the protection of fish that practically removed these counties from the operation of our most excellent fish laws. The effect of waters and the waters in which the tide ebbs and flows from the operation Of these statutes. Of course, this takes In all the bays along the Alabama coast line.
 "The expected has happened. Tue people of Mobile now realize that their waters are being preyed upon to such an extent as to deprive the inhabitants of that county from enjoying that which nature has so abundantly laid at their door, I have no doubt but that if the legislature should assemble to- morrow that the very members who proposed the amendments which i'm paired the law would be eager for the repeal of their effect. It is fortunate for the people of Alabama that the fresh waters of the state are adequate ly protected and vigorously guarded by the game warden constabulary.
 Alabama at one time was the Wal tons paradise. Coursing through this state are hundreds of beautiful, limp;d streams in whose placid depths former ly were found every specie of game fish known to this cline. It is a known
 
 been dynamited sened, netted ana trapped until they have in lar "a. measure become practically depleted of fish. All that is required Is to let the fish of Alabama have a rest, and the streams will once more be restocked and will teem with desirable species of the finny tribe as they did in pristine times.
 Murderous Dynamite.
 "The murderous dynamiter tn 1t throws his cartridge into stream gets only small proportion of the fish !ae kills. The rest float off dead, a dead loss to humanity. He likewise kills d, of the small fry which If left tog row would some day develop into delicate table morsels. Those who seine streams dump out the small fish and never thlr of replacing them, so rapacious are they to get their greedy hands on tue glistening beauties they have dragged from their haunts.
 The nefarious practice of dynamit- ing, sefning, netting, and trapping the streams has been in a large measure stopped under the operation of our tlsl. laws, and it is known fact that sport with hook and line in Ala abama during last season has been better than fn. 25 years
 When We establish the fish culture station contemplated by the bill of Sen ator Joseph F. Johnston, which has already passed the senate and which now awaits the action of the house, every stream in Alabama will be re- stocked with fish, which we propose to protect and preserve for the benefit Of the people at large, prosecuting and pursuing with the vengeance of a spite full fury on the trail of a lost spirit the vandals who erstwhile haunted the streams with illicit devices eager it.