IGNORANCE ABOUT FISH

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 35, 10 August 1936, Page 8

IGNORANCE ABOUT FISH

Consequent on -financial breakdown, a new start in fresh-water fish research is announced by the Chief Inspector of Fisheries, Mr. A. E. Hefford, in* a Christchurch statement reprinted in Saturday's issue. Hitherto, Professor Percival and his research colleagues have had to depend, in part, on information supplied by anglers and on money coming partly from fish licence or opossum licence funds. This support was necessarily irregular and not dependable. Possibly many anglers who intended to forward, regularly, scales and measurements of captured fish have failed to do' so, sometimes through a failure of the- trout lo cooperate, sometimes through unavoidable obstacles. But if, on the new financial basis, the collecting of information on streams and lakes, and (he interpreting of it, can he carried ■on-with, continuity and system, the ultimate result is likely to be important. If research so far has given few

definite answers, it lias certainly raised definite questions. For instance, it lias put a query against the societies' hatchery policies. ]n every branch of life, practices are lakcu for granted that should not be taken for granted. Even if the progress recorded is merely the questioning of the hitherto unquestionable, it is probably progress. When research queries a convention, and with reason, the mentality behind the research is evidently alive.