The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1910-11-17
THE HERRING FISHERY.
A Prominent Sardine Packer States His
Views on Important Industry.

A Prominent Sardine Packer States His
Views on Important Industry.
To THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL: have
read with interest the articles in recent edi-
tions of the Waldo County Herald and Bangor
News upon the destruction of herring by sein-
ers. The writers of these articles are evil
IDENTIFY not fishermen, and like so many of our
Maine protectionists are writing upon SUBJ
ject about which they know absolutely nothing.
Articles like these directed against the prac-
tice of seining herring have appeared recently
in the above mentioned papers, and have circu-
lated throughout the State. While they are in
no way fou56ed upon facts, nevertheless being
written by men of excitable and easily inf1u-
enced minds, they give an erroneous impress
sion to the people at large, and are dong
much to hurt an industry upon which the peo-
pie of practically all Maine shore towns are
materially interested.
1t is a well known fact, and one seldom
thought of, that the Sea & Shore Fisheries of
Maine receive the least attention of any of the
Pine Tree State industries. In every other in
dustry of Importance in the State today, even
such things as brook fishing and deer hunting,
the Legislature has taken great pains to estab-
lish commissions to study means for bettering
existing conditions. might name Agriculture
and Forestry as examples, and as a result the
State possesses better, and what is Of more i'm
portance, access to trained men who can give
expert advice upon the proper way to till the
soil, cut the trees and protect our game.
Now leaving aside the question of enforce
ment of fisheries laws, do not know man in
this State today who can tell me where the
herring spawn, what percent of the spawn live,
what we should do to protect the herring, and
what means we should employ to insure their
extinction. If there is such man, and he
will stand up and tell me that it is injurious to
the fishing industry to seine herring, and show
me facts to prove his statements, l will work
for the most stringent seining law that can be
passed. The trouble is right here, there is no
one in the State that knows enough about her
ring to qualify him to act as sponsor for bill
to protect the herring, let alone seining them
Our laws relating to herring have ali been
drawn up and pushed through the Legislature
by the grocery store politicians, and the sein-
ing laws, of which about every town on the
coast has different one, have been promulga-
ted and agitated by some such men as the
writer of the articles which have before men
toned; a man who seeing John Jones from
Jonesport seining herring near his shore says
to himself, THAT Jones has made five hundred
dollars this year seining herring behind my
hat bos
Herring have been seined in Scotland Nor
way and Japan for eight hundred years; in
fact, that is the only way they are caught.
The Japanese have seines five miles long, the
majority of which are owned by municipalities
and are rented to the fishermen With these
they surround body of herring and hold them
weeks at a time, until such time as they are
properly prepared to be taken from the water
and used an article of food. Catching her
ring is the only means of existence which many
of these people have, and it is not probable
that they would ieopardize such an industry
by catching herring through destructive meth
DDS. According to statistics, the value of the
Japanese catch of herring compared to the
United States catch last year, estimated as the
fish are taken from the water, is Japan, five
million dollars, United States, five hundred
thousand dollars. The little country of Hol-
land, with only twelve thousand square miles of
territory, compared with the State of Maine,
which has twenty nine thousand square miles,
has on an average, twenty thousand men en-
gagged annually catching herring, and believe
that am safe in saying that you cannot find
on our Maine coast, five hundred men engaged
in herring fishing while our coast line is hun
dreds of miles greater than the above country.
Prof Smith of the United States Fish Com
mission, after recent investigation of the her
ring fisheries of the world, says that by no pos
sible means could man destroy five per cent OF
the herring that are killed each year in the
ocean. Herring are the great food fish OF the
sea; they are preyed upon by almost every
animal and fish that swims, as well all sea
birds, and in turn they are the most prolific
each herring spawning an average of twenty
thousand annually. One old haddock on the
spawning beds will destroy mere herring in a
day than any Of our Maine seiners have caught
in a week. l have seen herring piled up on the
shores of Passamaquoddy Bay two feet oeep
dead and rotting, driven there by school OF
squid. The city Of st. John, N. b. had crew
of men working with road machines last fall
destroying rows of herring, which had been
driven ashore by dogfsh and threatened te
drive the inhabitants inland by their stencil.
have seen school of silver hake this year &c
into weir on the Mussel Ridge Islands ano
destroy in three days school of herring which
was estimated at two hundred hogsheads.
Regarding the. statement that the herring
have left the eastern coast, the man who
makes such a statement is ignorant of existing
conditions. Three generations of my family
have been engaged in catching herring exclu
sively, and have made it life work. have
heard my grandfather say that there have beer
years upon years when it has been impossible
by any means known to catch herring enough
to furnish ait for hand fishing, and the mex
year they would return plentiful as ever
Even during my business experience can re
call number of years when the herring wer'
even less plentiful than they are this year, thu
pack of sardines falling far below the pael
of this wear | venture to say that days