Thank you very much.
I am a research scientist pinch-hitting for the president of the organization, who could not be here today.
The nature of our testimony is really about our experience of life under SARA. A subpopulation of the Atlantic salmon was the first group of marine fish to be listed there. So that is the spirit in which I deliver my comments here today, on behalf of the Atlantic Salmon Federation.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation is an international, non-profit organization headquartered in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, with regional offices in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. We also have offices in the northeastern United States.
We are dedicated to the conservation and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and the river and marine ecosystems on which their survival depends.
We work closely with seven regional councils and 120 volunteer river organizations that are our grassroots in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. This network covers the freshwater range of wild Atlantic salmon in North America.
In carrying out our programs, we use scientific research, advocacy, and public awareness.
As I mentioned, I believe Atlantic salmon was the first marine species to be listed under SARA, and those were the inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic salmon populations. We are very concerned that without urgent action the wild Atlantic salmon populations of the approximately 32 inner Bay of Fundy rivers that have been listed under SARA will become extinct.
The range of the inner Bay of Fundy salmon includes all rivers draining into the Bay of Fundy from the Mispec River in New Brunswick, which is east of the Saint John River, around the bay to the Pereaux River in Nova Scotia, which is east of the Annapolis River. It is estimated that when populations were healthy in these rivers, more than 40,000 Atlantic salmon returned each year. A precipitous decline began in the late 1980s in these returns, so that by 1998 the wild salmon population was estimated to be fewer than 500, and now fewer than 200 return annually.
These salmon remain largely within the Bay of Fundy and in the adjacent water of the Gulf of Maine throughout their life at sea. This is unusual for Atlantic salmon, which typically range great distances in the North Atlantic. Many go as far as Labrador or Greenland.
While freshwater issues such as logging practices, agricultural runoff, building of the massive Petitcodiac tidal barrier--the gates of which were recently opened by the Province of New Brunswick--and smaller dams played a part in the declines historically, it appears the major critical problem now is at-sea survival. Theories on the mortality at sea have ranged from declining food supply to modification of environmental conditions; impacts from salmon farming that include disease transfer and increased infestations of sea lice; increased predation by seals, cormorants, and other predators; and changes in salmon behaviour due to declining numbers. Perhaps some combination of all these act together.
During the time that wild Atlantic salmon began their decline in the Bay of Fundy, the aquaculture industry was growing quickly, with very little regulation and enforcement in place. There was little monitoring of the effects of sea lice and other impacts on wild juvenile salmon, called smolts, as they made their way out to the ocean. We acknowledge that steps have been taken to improve the operational practices in this industry, but we remain concerned about the potential ill-effects of interaction between wild and farmed Atlantic salmon. With the growing resistance in our region of farmed Atlantic salmon to sea lice treatments in recent months, this threat to wild salmon must be monitored and appropriate action taken as needed.
The draft recovery document for the inner Bay of Fundy salmon complex states very clearly that the problems with the inner Bay of Fundy salmon populations are in the marine environment. We have a major knowledge gap about the marine life of inner Bay of Fundy salmon, but there is little in this document to reflect plans for work in this area. The report states that major marine mortality occurs during the post-smolt stage--this is shortly after they enter the sea for the first time as juvenile fish--but there is no committed research in this document on that phase of the salmon’s life cycle.
Salmon from inner Bay of Fundy rivers are being held or “gene-banked” at three locations, all operated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to ensure that genetic material is available for restoration efforts; however, there is no dedicated long-term funding for these operations.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has indicated these populations were endangered in 2001, and they were listed under the Species at Risk Act in 2003.
It took until December 2009 for Fisheries and Oceans Canada to issue a draft recovery plan to which the public was invited to provide input. Once the recovery plan is approved, DFO expects it to take another four years to develop and finalize action plans. This is a very, very long time, an unacceptably long time, to bring these actions to bear.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation and our regional councils recommend that DFO expedite the process to develop the required action plans to achieve the recovery goals and objectives identified in the recovery strategy. In addition, we recommend that DFO dedicate and provide the additional funding that's needed to carry out the recovery strategy and confirm the importance of the live gene bank program to recovery by including it in the department's annual A-base budget.
We recommend that marine critical habitat work become a priority and that the required resources be directed at this work, particularly regarding the post-smolts in the ocean, in order to give the recovery the greatest chance of success.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak with you.