Mr. Chairman, there's something I'm wondering about when it comes to the seals. The previous witnesses said that the number of fishers in the southern gulf had gone down, and the number of seals had gone up by 7,000. There are now about 70,000 seals there.
If we have a large number of seals, should we not use the best logical indicator, which is the impact of nature? If the number of seals has gone up so much in 30 years, by 7,000 to 70,000, it is because the seals are finding food.
There are no physical boundaries for birds, who fly through the air, they can go from the north to the south and from the south back north again. The fish in the sea are in somewhat the same situation. Except when they are fed... There are a lot of birds around my cottage. What do I do to make them stop at my cottage? I installed bird feeders. Obviously we have to take regeneration into account, but if there are large numbers of the species' main predator... Sometimes, fishers find the cod they catch have no tails. That's not because some disease made it drop off, it's because they've been eaten. The problem has to be dealt with at the source, without hurting the fishermen in the process.
How can we deal with the problem at the source? Earlier, you talked about a study in which the stomach of seals would be opened and a camera inserted so that scientists could see what the seals were feeding on. Fishers have a great deal of trouble finding cod in August, and so do seals. If you did the study in September, the seals would probably no longer be there. So how could that study be carried out? In the period when there are seals, because probably that is when they have food. If they had no food, they would not be there.