Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'll start off by thanking you for the opportunity to appear before your committee again. In my opening remarks today, I'm going to talk about my direct experience with harp and hooded seals, as well as grey seals and other species.
In 1982, my first year with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I was at the front off the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. I was there at the tail end of the season for the large vessels from Canada and Norway and at the start of the activities for the less-than-65-foot vessels that were harvesting seals about 100 miles east of St. Anthony. That was the last year of harvesting whitecoats. In the following years, markets and harvest levels declined dramatically to around 50,000 animals a year. During that same time, seal populations expanded to five times what they were before, and groundfish stocks collapsed across eastern Canada.
For years, prior to and including 1982, there was a quota of 186,000 harp seals. The herd was stable at that time at approximately two million animals. Thirty-five years later, in 2017, I had the opportunity to visit Sable Island, where grey seals were congregated for their annual pupping cycle. There were thousands of these huge animals and pups on the island. Seeing them there in such huge numbers was an eye-opening experience.
For centuries, both fish and seals were harvested, with the number of seals being kept at levels that were not having the impact on fish species that they are today. After 1982, markets and harvest levels dropped. About the same time, the bounty on grey seals ended. Over the following years, the number of seals increased about fivefold. I believe seals were a key factor in the collapse of groundfish stocks. They remain a key factor in preventing cod recovery and being major predators on lobster, crab, salmon, herring, etc.
If you add up all the seals in eastern Canada and the Davis Strait, I believe there are about nine million seals, including harp, hooded, grey and such other species as harbour, ringed and bearded seals. Based on an estimated consumption of 1.4 tonnes of fish per year for harp seals and as much as two tonnes per year for the larger animals, such as hooded, grey and bearded seals, they would consume around 13 million tonnes of fish annually.
In the same area, in the same ecosystem, there are fisheries in Greenland and Canada from the Scotian Shelf to the Davis Strait and foreign fisheries on the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap. When you add it all up, the removal from all fisheries is somewhere in the range of 500,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes. The consumption by seals is more than 20 times the total of all our commercial fisheries.
Based on my experience and observations, and after talking to thousands of fish harvesters and DFO employees, including fishery officers, scientists and fisheries managers, and others from all over eastern Canada, I believe seals are consuming a huge amount of commercial species of fish, including crab, lobster, salmon, cod, turbot and important prey species like herring and capelin. Unless some action is taken to mitigate the impact of seals, there is no way to effectively manage important fish species using the precautionary approach. The seals will continue to eat them before the stocks reach the level where they can be fished commercially.
Seals are everywhere in the ecosystem and are eating whatever they can find, whether it is the belly of a codfish or a crab. I have reviewed the recent testimony of MP Cormier about the seals visible from his house in Baie-des-Chaleurs. I can also see them from my house in northeast Newfoundland. They are there to feed. They can be found in every bay and inlet and cove all around our coast. Recently a seal was spotted in the Exploits River near the community of Grand Falls-Windsor, which is about 20 miles inland. It was probably eating salmon that were returning to the ocean.
Seals need to be effectively managed as part of an effective ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management. The first step in that is to have a clear understanding of how much of each species of fish the seals are eating and what the impact is on each stock of fish.
There are many things that government can do to create the conditions for successful management and utilization of seal stocks. These include coordination, infrastructure, research and development, marketing and trade support, and vessel insurance, just to name a few.
In conclusion, I have two recommendations for you to consider putting to DFO.
One is to study the issue of seal consumption and determine how much of each species of fish each species of seal is consuming annually. The second is to implement an ecosystem-based approach with management strategies that include reducing the impact of predation by seals on key commercial and food chain species.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to your committee today. I'll try to answer your questions when we get to that.
Thank you very much.