There are about half a million people there now. We've tried creating other means of keeping people there. Let's create a window factory. But they're hundreds of miles from markets. It doesn't work. We're trying to get that resource re-established.
These seals eat a lot of fish, about a tonne a year per seal. And that's only estimated by the feces. They examine the feces. As the chair correctly mentioned--I'm getting to your points, Mr. Chair--they estimate that the seals eat only about 20% of the fish. If they shared the blinking fish, it wouldn't be so hard on the resource. We're trying to recover that resource, the cod. I wanted to make that point.
I also wanted to make the point that on Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which my colleague Mr. Blais represents, they refer in French to these seals as loups-marin. There's an island called Île-de-loup-marin, which means “wolves of the sea”. They do eat an awful lot of fish. We're trying to see these stocks recover. We don't like to see animals wasted. That's why we're trying to develop markets so that they're used like other animals that are used for domestic purposes.
I wanted to address the issue of the hakapik. It looks brutal in the image that you have there, sir, and you correctly said, can we not do it some other way? It's not used extensively everywhere, but we do have an independent veterinary group that has examined this, and they have appeared here--and I have a background in zoology, so I paid close attention to this issue. The hakapik is actually the most humane way to kill these seals at this stage. The vets have examined this. It's better than a bullet, because often when you shoot a seal, if you miss the brain, they fall into the water and they're not dead.