Thank you, Mr. Sopuck, for the question.
As I said earlier in my statement before the committee, wildlife is not an accident, and healthy and thriving fish and wildlife populations are not accidents. They have to be managed. They have to be managed to protect them and they have to be managed for people's enjoyment, whether that happens to be birdwatching, hunting, fishing, or whatever activity you're engaged in. People who are in the field, such as anglers, hunters, birdwatchers, hikers, campers, or whoever, are people who engage in outdoor activities of all types. They are on the ground. They have the best experience because they see what's happening on the ground while they're taking part in these activities.
These populations clearly have to be managed. With deer populations, we hear people all the time getting upset, for instance, when they hear about a deer cull. Any time you engage in a cull is an admitted failure on the part of government, whichever that might be, to manage wildlife properly. That means you've let them get out of hand far beyond what the habitat can sustain in a given area and therefore you have to cut them back. People get outraged about this and say, well, isn't this horrific. The science behind fish and wildlife management is very precise. There are so many caring capacities for so many animals on such and such a property. When it gets beyond that, it then becomes to the detriment of people, the animals, and the ecosystems, because there are just too many on the landscape. They're either destroying the vegetation or they're unable to find enough food to eat and therefore they're going to starve to death. There is a delicate balance here, but it's not something that just happens by accident.
The Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario has statements in its policies that say hunting is the most valuable wildlife management tool they have available to them because it's managed, there's a tag system, there's an allocation system, and there's a reason that the numbers are that.
Ms. Hughes has raised a question about the moose population. Well, the reason there are cutbacks is that the moose population is declining, but you can't just simply look at that in terms of how to manage a resource or you're going to fail.