Thank you very much for the good questions.
Let me briefly reply to Mr. Kamp. You asked about the west coast, whether we would look at an independent operator operation on the west coast. Again, the west coast fishery is significantly different from the east coast, but undoubtedly there are great commonalities, and over a few years we will do whatever benefits the fishermen themselves. These initiatives are not ones generated in Ottawa; they're ones that came from the people themselves when we worked with them.
The issues you raised, Mike, are extremely important. Aquaculture has become one of the priorities in our department, and I say that from two sides. Number one is trying to alleviate the concerns or verify them, as it might be, and deal with them. But we see aquaculture, not only in Canada but throughout the world, as becoming extremely important as a creator of major employment and putting a major protein product on the shelves, which we can no longer do with the wild fishery because of how we've handled it over the last few years.
We have taken major initiatives, both in relation to the fish we manage inside the 200-mile limit and in dealing with our international partners outside it, to try to concentrate on conservation, which is the bottom line in every decision we make. By working with them, we are seeing less pressure on the stocks. We are actually seeing growth in a number of our stocks.
The ones that are healthy, we are trying to preserve. The ones that have almost been destroyed, we are trying to rebuild. But in the meantime, we cannot meet the insatiable demand for good, clean fish product. Can we have good, clean, fresh product from aquaculture? Absolutely we can, and we're showing that in a number of areas in our country: New Brunswick leading the way, British Columbia, and now Newfoundland and Labrador coming in.
The recent stories on salmon concentrated probably on two things. One is sea lice. We have had numerous studies done--independent studies, internal studies--and it is difficult to determine whether sea lice is any greater problem around salmon farms than it is anywhere else.
But I think the most concerning thing in one of the studies I read recently is that we are seeing a decline in salmon and trout around areas where there are fish farms. We are seeing a decline in salmon everywhere, to the same degree where there are no fish farms, never were, and never will be. There is something happening in the ocean. It might be migration. We are seeing a lot of our pelagics, in particular, migrating north. The sardines that were abundant off California are now abundant off British Columbia. Our herring that were never seen in Labrador are being seen in Labrador, etc.
But we are not seeing the returns to the rivers. We could predict within a small percentage point how many salmon would come back to any one river, and we would be very close. These last few years we're not even close to that, and there is no explanation except that something is going on from the time the salmon leaves the spawning grounds until it comes back—on the way out, on the way back, or out there.
One of the commonalities throughout the country now—it used to be just off Newfoundland and Labrador—is predation. We always talked about seals. One of my predecessors, John Efford, always talked about seals and the destruction of fish. On my last two trips to British Columbia, the major concern raised by a number of people was predation. That is something we have to look at, and certainly in your own area in the gulf, in particular, it is a major issue. So we have to find out more about what's happening.