Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and fellow presenters.
Thank you for the invitation to speak today and to be a witness on the pinniped, its impacts on fish stocks, and how it affects fish harvesters and the communities in which we live.
I have been a professional fish harvester and sealer for over 30 years. In that time, I have seen the commercial salmon fishery close and just the recreational fishery remain, and yet this stock has continued to decline, with less and less fish every year returning to our rivers. I have seen a cod moratorium. It was put in place in 1992. Thirty years later, this stock has not rebounded to anywhere near its historic levels, according to science. Just last year, we watched our federal fisheries minister put a moratorium on mackerel. Now there are rumours of a potential closure on capelin and other species that we harvesters depend on for our livelihood.
Leadership within DFO, in its wisdom, seems to think that closing a commercial fishery to harvesters will save and help rebuild fish stocks, but the truth is that it does not. We now have the history to prove that.
In my lifetime, the only species that I have seen increase after a reduction in harvesting—through the loss of markets, that is—is the pinniped population. That's because it is at or near the top of the food chain. We are the ones, harvesters and government, who must be responsible for harvesting at the correct level in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem. It is our duty to manage our resources properly, because when we don't, the impacts will be felt for generations to come.
I have seen first-hand how much fish is being destroyed by pinnipeds. I have harvested thousands of them and have checked many of their stomachs. I've found a variety of fish species: Greenland halibut—or turbot, as we call it—capelin, northern cod, Arctic cod, herring, mackerel, shrimp, lumpfish, young wolffish, and yes, even snow crab.
I want to put into perspective just how huge an impact this species is having on our resources. Five out of the 10 provinces in Canada are affected by an overpopulation of pinnipeds, and two of the three territories. The population of Canada is near 39 million. We have somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of that number in pinnipeds in our waters off our coastlines. Can you imagine the volume of food that is required to feed these populations? I took out of the stomach of one old harp up to five turbot and two codfish, certainly a lot more than I could eat in one day—or any other person could, for that matter.
Our ecosystem is feeding these animals, but not without damage being done to it. We are seeing more and more fish stocks being depleted and fisheries closed. All of this is happening under the watch of the current leadership. I have to ask this question: Is this how we want our generation to be remembered, with fish stocks depleted because no action was taken to control the population of pinnipeds? If this population of pinnipeds were placed upon the land and everybody could see it, then we would more than likely deal with the issue and make efforts to reduce the populations. Because it's found in the ocean, and only those of us who are on the water can actually see it, it's easy for leadership to ignore.
The impact that this overpopulation of pinnipeds is having on harvesters and communities is devastating, to say the least. I have had to watch our fishery enter a time of consolidation, where harvesters like me have had to keep reinvesting in this industry to make it viable. In order to make a reasonable living for ourselves and our crews who fish with us, we have had to buy up other fishing enterprises. Now we have one-third of the harvesting sector that we previously had. By doing so, we thought that we should end up with maybe three times the fish to catch, but that is not the case. We have less and less fish to catch each year, and yet we spend more and more trying to survive.
In closing, I would like to say that we—harvesters and our elected government—need to address the largest problem our fisheries have ever faced. An overpopulation of pinnipeds is decimating our fish stocks. Without industry and our elected officials together going to other countries and trying to open up markets for what is and what can be a very valuable resource, our future as an industry looks very bleak. We have a justifiable cause to reduce the pinniped population. It will protect our fish resources and those who make a living from them.
Thank you.