Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to keep it as short as I possibly can to allow for questions. I'll go through the deck fairly rapidly.
The objectives for the hunt are sustainable use, conservation, humane hunting practices, and the fullest possible use of the killed animals. One thing we want to make clear is that we do not have an objective to limit the size of the population for the purposes of trying to control the ecosystem. We did have that question put to an expert panel, and they were unable to provide advice; it's far too complex a web or food chain, and we could not determine any rationale to limit the size of the population.
“Fullest possible use” is a policy we seek, but it's really dependent on markets. It's not something we are able to require, but it is an objective we would pursue, although not through regulatory means.
I think people are quite familiar with where the hunting takes place--on the front, off of Labrador, or around the Magdalen Islands. This year that wasn't the case as much. We had the hunt take place more to the north.
Looking at slide 4, we have six species of seals. The vast majority of the seals killed in the hunt are harp seals because of the large size of that population. We have TACs for hooded and grey seals as well. There are no quotas for ringed, harbour, and bearded seals, although those are taken in aboriginal subsistence hunts. The majority of the hunt takes place between March and May, with the March opening in the gulf and the April opening in the front.
In the seal hunt we have established an objective-based fish management process and also the precautionary approach. We have set conservation limits that will dictate the actions we take when those limits are reached. We also have set those limits based on the highest estimated population, around 5.5 million in 2001. That actually has gone up somewhat since that time. The population hasn't gone up but the estimate has increased to 5.8 million, I believe.
In slide 6 you'll see that we have some zones for the management of this population. The limits are noted there. The maximum observed is 5.82 million, and 70% of that gives us 4.07 million. Between 4 million and 5.8 million is a zone that we feel is quite safe to manage the population in that area. We leave debates on the TAC with the industry, and setting TAC, predominantly for socio-economic reasons, in that zone. However, should we reach lower than 4.07 million, then we would start changing the management regime to focus more heavily on conservation. That focus on conservation would further increase if we hit the buffer at 50% of the maximum, and at the end limit, 1.75 million, we would stop all hunting.
So as we move down in the population toward those limits, our focus on conservation would increase to the point where below the 50% level we would have a very significant pressure on us and on the industry to move back into the safe zone above 4.07 million.
Those are already understood by the sealing industry. They know that we would shift our focus if we got into those levels of population. I think the interest of all is to keep the hunt in the area where we have the opportunity to pursue markets, etc. That's above 4.07 million, and that's where we're trying to keep the population so that it provides the maximum yield for the industry.
In terms of consultations, every five years we have a new survey, a detailed survey of the population based on overflights, exhaustive counting of the animals, and analysis of the data. That then triggers a seal forum. The last one was in 2002, I believe. It was then because we had the last available data, but we upgraded that data last year. Last year on November 7 and 8 we had a seal forum, where we invited a large number of people from 200 groups; 100 attended. That was followed by a seal advisory committee on November 9 and 10 to deal with access and allocation issues.
The forum sets the conservation framework for the five-year plan, and the advisory committee deals with the specifics of the individual year. The advisory committee on November 9 and 10 was to deal with the plan for 2006. What we would do is have another advisory committee to go over the 2006 seal hunt, and that would be used to make changes for the 2007 hunting season.
The results of those consultations were that we set out the framework, as you saw before, with the conservation limits and the understanding of how the rules would change in the event the population fell. That was set out for the 2006 to 2010 period. We did not, however, set out a TAC for those years. We left that to the seal advisory committee to set the TAC on an individual year in conjunction with the scientific advice and whatever happened the previous year in the hunt--under or over--and what the market conditions will bear. So there'll be no multi-year TAC this time, unlike the previous plan, but there will be setting of the TAC after those consultations.
For 2006 we set the TAC at 325,000 animals, with a 10,000-animal reserve for aboriginal hunting in the Arctic and for personal use hunts. We are looking at adjusting the TAC of 10,000 for hooded seals. We should have a survey on hooded seals, and that will allow us to revise the hooded seal TAC. Having said that, the 10,000-animal TAC is not taken; hooded seals are not taken more than a few hundred animals each year. That may change in the future.
Regulatory and policy changes are being contemplated. We're looking at working with the independent veterinarians working group to determine if anything should be done in order to make the hunt even more humane than it currently is.
We're looking at new licensing criteria. We had a licence freeze in the past. That is going to be reviewed due to the fact that there have been shortages of crew to work on the sealing vessels. We're going to have to work with the industry to re-evaluate how to go about the licensing.
Vessel registration requirements for small boats are going to have to be considered. We've had a problem with hails. People are hailing late and hailing low. They may have 100 animals on board and we may be told there's 50; they only upgrade it later on. We have to deal with that so that we can have a better handle on the number of animals being killed on a daily basis.
We're going to have to consider some move on the blueback issue. We have a regulation that prevents hunting on the youngest animals--in harp seals, the whitecoats. Until they start to moult and turn into beaters, we don't have the hunt. The hooded seals actually moult in the womb the first time, and then at around a year or 18 months, while they're in the blueback stage, they're completely independent. The question is, would we change the regulations to allow some hunting on that? There are strong views on both sides of that issue. We're going to be discussing all those issues with the industry stakeholders and interested parties.
On enforcement, we have at-sea inspections from large vessels, small vessels, Zodiacs, aircraft overflights, dockside and plant inspections, vehicle inspections, observers on sealing vessels, vessel hails on a daily basis, processor and buyer receipts, and VMS for the longliners, the satellite system that tells us where the longliners are located. So we have a large investment in monitoring the hunt on an annual basis.
It is the first big fishery that takes place in Atlantic Canada, the first economic opportunity for many people, and this year it's been a very important contributor to people's bottom lines. Without this, many people would not be making a go of it this year.
Proper sealing methods are a big issue. We want to make sure that the animals are killed very quickly and humanely, that they lose consciousness irreversibly and almost instantly. We're looking at the proper use of firearms and in some cases the hakapiks and clubs. In any regulated activity, there's always some non-compliance. In 2005 we had 50 charges, for example, and about 30 charges so far in 2006, with 37 warnings.
So in terms of accusations that these are unregulated activities, that's clearly not the case. We do have numerous warnings and charges. But to put that in perspective, there were about 14,000 licences issued this year; you can see that the vast majority of participants are complying with the requirements.
In addition, we have seal hunt observation licences. There were 73 licences issued this year from 97 applications. We declined to offer licences to 24 applicants. There were 60 licences issued in 2005, and 42 in 2004, so the interest is obviously going up.
In 2006, seven Humane Society of the United States members and a Reuters freelance photographer were arrested. The investigation on that is ongoing. Charges have not yet been laid. That remains an open investigation.
In 2005, 12 unlicensed observers were fined $1,000 each after being charged and convicted.
That, Mr. Chairman, is the presentation. We're open to any questions the members may wish to pose.
