Los Angeles herald., 1908-07-12
FISH AND GAME
LAWS DEFECTIVE
SPORTSMEN URGE REVISION
AND AMENDMENT
DESIRE sTRIcTER REGULATIONS
AND PENALTIES
Wholesale Destruction Constitutes Sc
rious Menace, and Prompt and Or
ganized Efforts to Prevent
It Are Required
BY EDWIN |. HEppERLY

The fish and game of California, in
their wild state, and as an incentive
to sportsmen from other states and
from foreign countries, are more valu-
able each year to the people as
money producer than the combined
| total value of the fish and game IN
dustry. Men come here from London,
Paris and Berlin for no other reason
than that they may enjoy the royal
fishing and hunting of the Pacific
coast, and the money they leave in
their wake is remarkable
| AS the years pass the number OF
| fishers and hunters grows and Will
continue to grow If our legislature will
enact competent game and fish laws
and our game and fish commission Will
| enforce them.
The coast from Puget sound to San
Diego furnishes all kinds of climate
and all varieties of game and fish, and
would be the hunters and anglers
paradise but for the illegal market
hunters and fishers, who curse the
coast by evading the law and decimat-
ing both fish and game.
Take, for example, the matter or
duck hunting. The law provides a
limit of thirty-five birds day per gun,
and yet pot hunters with guns as
heavy as four-bore kill hundreds each
day in the San Joaquin valley, and the
market men of San Francisco are con-
federates in the practice. The bag
limit is binding on firms as well as on
| individuals, even when the birds are
killed legally, and yet the destruction
and sale continue.
Our present game and fish commits
sion is composed of three men, and
they have the peculiar gift of legisla-
tive, executive and judicial power in
| all that concerns the taking of fish or
game. and for this reason should be
appointed wholly outside of political
considerations.
The gun and fishing clubs of South
ern California would like to see Charles
F. Holden appointed as a COMMISSION
er to represent this section, and then
we could be assured of the services of
a true sportsman and a conscientious,
| able man.
That the gun clubs and sportsmen
generally are striving to keep the law
may be seen by their constant EFFORTS
to reduce the bag limit. At first 1t
was set at fifty birds, then to thirty
five, and most of them would now
make it twenty-five birds to the bag.
San Francisco opposes the limit law
in all it's bearings, and what we nave
been able to accomplish has been the
result of bitterly fought compromises.
The local capital invested in the
business of supplying sportsmen IS
greater than generally believed. we
have some dozen or more firms nam
ding all sorts of guns, ammunition and
fishing tackle, and there are hundreds
of manufacturers agents at all times
in the field for business. Then there
is a vast army of people who make a
livelihood from hunting and hshlng.
: Many of these are now reaping the
whirlwind for their wasteful practices
in past years. Take, for example, the
! bait question. Sardines are fine bait
and till recently could be obtained
plentifully. Now, owing to the networA
of the sardine cannery, they are re-
duced 70 per cent. There is wei
founded enmity to the sardine cam
merry.
In the matter of CLAIMS, we are now
dependent on Pizmo beach and Other
northern points for our clam bait OF
for clans for the table, the whole
southern beach being cleaned out by
market men. In the state of Washing
| ton careful men saw the early extinc.
ton of the clam through the whole
sale canning industry and enacted anc
earnestly enforced a law which de-
clares a closed season for CLAIMS. Il
would be a blessing to sportsmen If z
similar law were in force in California
The same may be said of crawtish
There is a law which demands that the
fish shall be of a certain length, vel
, the greedy market men have almost
| exterminated them. Ten years age
they were plentiful and cheap. The
market fishermen, especially the Japs
SET nets around the kelp areas or
rocky bottoms and scoop in all, regard.
less of the law, which demands thai
crawf1sh less than nine and hail
inches shall be returned to the water
The fact that restaurants will pay q
good price for young crawfish out.
weighs the law and helps to defeat it
1t used to be that one could take
these fish in quantities anywhere along
lour southern coast but now they are