DYNAMITE AND POISON.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 66285, 2 October 1925, Page 3

DYNAMITE AND POISON.

HOW CHINESE GO FISHING WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION The Chinese fisherman seldom returns from a day’s search after finny food without a full basket, for his methods, though primitive and devoid and sportsmanship, are exceedingly effective. In lieu of flies he uses poison and dynamite. Dr. Arthur De Carle Sowerby, co-editor of the China Journal of Science and Arts, describes the methods employed by these fishermen. ,All sorts of devices are resorted to in order to catch fish. The streams and canals are netted persistently and everything, even the tiniest fish, are taken out. Where netting is impractraps are used, and no fish, however small, is returned to the water. The rivers are fished with lines and by means of cormorants, the latter method being particularly destructive, since it is carried out in many cases on a wholesale scale. A section of the river is chosen, and anywhere from a dozen to thirty small boats, each with two or three cormorants, scour the water. The birds catch a great many fish in this way, but, what is worse, they drive those fish they cannot catch, into nets placed for them, so that when a halt is called the section of the river being worked is probably depleted of all but minnows. The worst method of taking fish, however, are thoes in which explosives or poisons are used. In the Fukien Province there are certain species of plants which, when put into the water, will poison all fish in the stream below them for a mile or more. The Chinese know this and, during the summer months, a wholesale destruction of fish takes place. The wicked part of this method is that no living thing escapes, and that not only the fish themselves and the fry are destroyed, but also shrimp and other acquatic invertebrates upon which the survivors might feed. CLEANING OUT THE TJtOUT Dynamiting is resorted to in districts where the explosives can be obtained, as, for instance, along the Yaiu, in Southern Manchuria, and in other districts adjacent to treaty ports. While in the Imperial Hunting Ground, north-east of Peking, one of the only places in China where trout can be obtained, Dr. Sowerby was informed by the Chinese that they were cleaning'out the streams of fish by this method. The fish cannot be protected under existing conditions, since it would entail employment not only of a staff of scientific investigators, but a much larger number of fish wardens, and China’s financial state is not sufficiently sound just now.