Fisheries Committee on June 15th, 2006

[David Bevan]

They've changed the process for estimating the seal population and have determined that there are more of them than we believed. According to the scientists, the population hasn't increased, it's just...

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

... an estimation.

[David Bevan]

...a change in the estimation process.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

In fact, the 5.82 million figure isn't correct, if I understood correctly.

[David Bevan]

It's an estimate. The population is between approximately four million and 6.5 million, but the average is 5.82 million.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

All right. How many are there, including all six species?

[Ken Jones]

We don't have the right figures for all species. There's a new way of calculating the number of grey seals, and the people responsible for that are preparing a new way to calculate the hooded seal population. The seal population of Greenland is estimated every five years, but that's not done for the other species because they aren't hunted as much.

The true seal population isn't concentrated like the grey seal, hooded seal and harp seal populations. It's a lot easier to estimate the harp seal population because they form large concentrations every year for newborns. In addition, scientists include baby seals, if you will, in their population estimates. The other seal species aren't found in such large concentrations.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

So we don't know the total seal population in the water?

[Ken Jones]

Not really.

[David Bevan]

We know there are more than six million seals in the Arctic region.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I have one final question to ask you before handing over to Mr. Blais.

In your presentation, you said, “Control of seal predation has not been an objective.” Ultimately, you could have added that that was because you didn't have enough knowledge. Is that correct?

[David Bevan]

Yes.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Is the department interested in the impact that seals have on their environment?

[David Bevan]

That's far too difficult to understand. For example, seals eat cod, but that's often adult cod, large cod. However, a number of fish eat cod eggs. It's really too complicated to understand the connection between the seal population and predation on cod...

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

And the other species.

[David Bevan]

...and the other species. It's impossible to predict the result in the case of a decline in the seal population.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

All right. Thank you.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Good morning, gentlemen. I have a criticism to make of you.

First, why are you absent from the international scene, when a Council of Europe commission is looking into this matter?

[David Bevan]

We recently sent a number of people to Europe to talk. We sent someone to Berlin and another person to The Hague. We started discussions with governments in Europe to convince them that the seal hunt was...

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Can you send us a detailed copy of the minutes of that meeting, that is to say when it was held, who was present and the circumstances in which it took place?

Furthermore, I also want to criticize the laxism you showed in 2006. The people of the Magdalen Islands, whom I represent, are frustrated. Ultimately, they're angry at seeing that they were the only ones observing the quotas, when there was an explosion elsewhere. Let me tell you that the wrong message was sent, in terms of management. Ultimately, your laxism amounts to saying, “What the heck, let's go at it!”

What happened in 2006 that can justify that situation?

[David Bevan]

In 2006, we shared the quotas among fishermen. For example, there was a quota for fishermen from the Magdalen Islands, another for those from the Lower North Shore, one for Newfoundland, and so on. We established a process for getting data from those fishermen. Unfortunately, they didn't provide the right information on the number of seals they had killed. For example, some fishermen said they had killed about 100 seals, where they had in fact killed twice that number. That's what caused problems. This year, our objective is to improve the situation.

The hunters from the Magdalen Islands overfished by only 10%, but the others definitely took too many seals. For example, the hunters from the Lower North Shore tripled their quota.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

In view of what happened in 2006, do you understand how that sends wrong messages to the wrong people?

[David Bevan]

Yes. We made sure we didn't overfish too much. In total, we took approximately 336,000 seals. So, overall, there was a little overfishing, but —

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

But region by region, it was something else.

[David Bevan]

There are situations where there are more problems —