Evidence of meeting #46 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prevention.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
That's fine. I certainly accept that.
In terms of the American experience with Asian carp, presumably they have been fighting these species for a number of years now. What lessons can we learn from what they have accomplished or not accomplished?
9:45 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I think probably the biggest lesson—and it gets to what Nick was saying—is that dealing with any invasive species is best done before it gets in and gets established. In Canada we're seeing that with how much it's costing us to address sea lamprey and the impact that it's had on commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes.
If we look into the United States and we see areas where Asian carp have become established, they have pretty much taken over the entire ecosystem. They make up about 90% of the biomass.
The traditional commercial fisheries would be gone and the impacts on the local economy would be devastating.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I certainly accept that prevention makes the most sense. I think it's prudent to plan for the worst. Again, my question relates to what the Americans have done with existing Asian carp populations and what results they have achieved.
This question is in the vein of war-gaming what might happen. That is the essence of my question.
9:45 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I think they are taking various approaches. I was actually on one of their boats this summer. They were trying to fish down the invasion front. We were setting nets in the Illinois River, right at the upper end of the Illinois where the fish are found. Within an hour we caught two tons of Asian carp in our boat alone. There were five boats out there, so 10 tons of fish were caught that day. They had been doing that for two weeks straight, so they took out 50 tons.
The idea is to remove enough so that you actually change the population growth rate, and move the population into a decline. They are doing an analysis which shows they are doing that.
If we were faced with going beyond prevention and into rapid response, we could get an idea of the type of effort required to carry out that rapid response from what the Americas are doing.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Is there any work being done on the development of new and selective fish toxicants that can target Asian carp? I think it was you or some other scientist last time who talked about rotenone pellets. Has that research advanced over the last little while? Could you expand on that?
9:45 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The U.S. Geological Survey is continuing to work on those toxicants that would be species specific. Asian carp feed by filter feeding. They're large fish; they can get up to 50 kilograms. They swim through the water column with their mouth open or they sip at the surface and filter microparticles or plankton through their gills. What they want is for them to filter the fish poisons in the same way. From what I understand, they are still in the trial phase and are having some success. They feel optimistic they will be able to come up with a specific piscicide.
The one thing we have to keep in mind is that most piscicides are not species specific. Even though the effect is intended to be on Asian carp, there could be some incidental mortalities as well. We would have to evaluate whether or not we are willing to take that risk once that poison system becomes operational.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
In terms of the Mississippi itself, which, it sounds to me, is completely overrun with Asian carp, what kind of trends are we seeing? Usually the trend for an invasive species is a rapid spike and then a decline to some kind of level that's in equilibrium. Is that occurring in the Mississippi or has the system completely changed? Are the native species able to fight back and get part of their niche or have the Asian carp simply overwhelmed the Mississippi?
9:45 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Because the Mississippi is so long, we've seen this invasion front moving further north for the last 20 years. You see that upward trend because you are constantly at this invasion front.
Further south, they do see some levelling off but still at very high levels of biomass of Asian carp. They are still at very high numbers, preventing commercial fishers from going out and fishing for other species because the fish destroy their nets and they cannot afford to fish for other species.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Being a Manitoban, Lake Winnipeg is of great concern to me. It strikes me that Lake Winnipeg and Lake Erie are similar kinds of habitats. If Asian carp ever got into Lake Winnipeg, which right now has a thriving walleye fishery, would we see similar effects on Lake Winnipeg that we have seen on the Mississippi?
9:50 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The observation that it is similar to Lake Erie is a good one. I would expect the same effects you saw on one of our slides: that they could readily survive there from a climatic point of view. The bigmouth buffalo, which is more or less an Asian carp analogue, does well in Manitoba. I would be very concerned about Asian carp. The one thing that may limit their distribution potentially is suitable spawning. We have not done a spawning tributary analysis for Manitoba yet.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to the presenters. Dr. Mandrak, you indicated that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is doing an assessment. If I understand it correctly, there are two physical barriers. I would like you to explain what there is in barriers. Also, could you explain the difference between the physical barriers and the electric barriers?
I'll leave it at that for now.
9:50 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal there is no physical barrier. An electrical barrier was originally put in as a pilot barrier about 10 years ago to prevent the spread of round goby into the Mississippi River. It was built too late to do that, but then as the threat of invasive species came the other way, with Asian carp, they realized it had the potential to prevent Asian carp from moving into the Great Lakes.
Because it was only a demonstration barrier, there were concerns that barrier failure might lead to times when the fish could actually get by, so they built a second barrier which is now operational. There are plans to build a third within this area south of Chicago. An electrical barrier has been shown to be highly effective. They've done trials where they've tagged surrogate species, such as common carp, that they know will not go through the barrier. It appears to be quite effective.
I would suggest that no barriers are 100% effective. When you hear about physical barriers, what they're talking about is physical separation. You need to understand that, essentially, they're going to fill in the canal to completely separate the watersheds.
There is also talk about ecological separation, where you prevent the organisms from mixing. That's what this barrier's doing, at least with fish.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
I believe there would be quite a difference in cost between the electrical barriers and the physical barriers. Could you elaborate?
9:50 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Absolutely. There is the cost of physically doing the work of building the electrical barrier versus the physical separation. Then there's the cost in trade because it would alter trade patterns and the movement of vessels in the vicinity of Chicago.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
In your assessment of when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is going to do its assessment, you indicated that 30 areas could be potential entry points. How many of these have barriers?
9:50 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Almost all of them do, not electrical barriers but physical barriers of types. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considered that when it was assessing the risk of these different barriers.
9:50 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
If I could clarify too, they were looking at all aquatic invasive species, so that would be viruses as well. There were only two that were for a fish.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
The Canadian Asian carp forum is coming up, and I would like you to comment on that.
I have asked this question before. There are many threats: floods, coming through the border illegally, and all that. I always think that education is most important. I would suspect that most people along the border would not want to import Asian carp if they knew the devastating effect it would have on the people in the area and the economy of the area. I would like you to comment on that. What do you think should be done, and how should it be done in order to educate the public?
9:55 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The forum is probably the first big event in which we have an opportunity to provide that sort of broad-based outreach to Canadians in a very public way. We're going to have the benefit of having the American experts along with our Canadian experts there.
9:55 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Incredibly. I've been involved in a lot of work internally and externally with our colleagues. I must say this is probably some of the most rewarding work I've been involved with in my public service career, because everybody knows the impacts of this if we don't succeed.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
You know, but I don't think everybody knows, and that's the problem.
9:55 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
You're right, Mr. MacAulay. This is why the education outreach is a key plank in our proposal for Canada. We are working with organizations, such as the conservation authorities, the folks who actually are out there on the water. Groups such as the Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters would be very much interested in this kind of stuff.
We'll be bringing those folks together and trying to get that message out. Going back to when we were here in the spring, there are folks who, if there's a dollar to be made, will try to do that. One of the benefits of the new changes to the Fisheries Act is that we can have different levels of fines and penalties for these infractions, and as a result of that the $50,000 fines that have been levied could be much higher. I think that would be, as well as the education outreach, a deterrent that would help.
