Fisheries Committee on May 12th, 2010

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

There are three possibilities. The first is through a direct route. If you can imagine yourself having a couple of critters the size of dinner plates sucking the blood out of your body, you might imagine how there might be direct consequences of that through essentially physiological breakdown and death resulting. That's what probably happens to the very smallest fish.

The second is through diseases that might be vectored either by the sea lice—that is, transferred from farmed to wild fish by the sea lice themselves—or just through opening up lesions on the skin that allow diseases to get in, so the ultimate cause of death might actually be a secondary disease.

The third possibility is what I mentioned before: increased vulnerability to other mortality agents, such as predation and starvation.

Those would be the three routes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Are there any broader effects that sea lice could have on the ecosystem?

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

That is also really important to keep in mind. The possibility of transmitting these to groundfish has already been mentioned, and that was quite an interesting discussion from Mr. MacDonald.

What we know in the Broughton, where one of my students has been studying this for the last few years, is that when coho salmon smolts eat infected pink salmon, the sea lice actually transfer to the coho salmon. What we have now been able to show is that the coho in the Broughton are also heavily infected by lice, even though they are considerably larger, and if you do the same sort of analysis that Dr. Krkosek did for pink salmon, you find the same signal in the populations of the coho salmon--that is, when fish farms began in the Broughton, coho populations began to decline; when they were fallowed, they bounced back up again. When the fallow ended, they declined again. You're getting exactly the same signal there, and there seem to be these consequences up the food chain for other species of fish.

The other way in which there can be broader effects is through reduced food availability for other species. If the wild salmon populations decline, you can expect a decline in populations of bears, dolphins, eagles, and other sea birds that feed on the fish. That will happen even in the forest, the riparian zones, where a lot of the nitrogen that feeds those riparian zones comes from the bodies of the salmon when they return and die in the fall. The ecosystem effects can be dramatic, and I don't think we spend enough time thinking about them.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

We've had expert professionals in front this committee who have said essentially that sea lice are not a problem on the west coast with respect to aquaculture and wild salmon. I even asked about the potential of developing resistance to SLICE. I'm wondering if you could comment on either of those.

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

I will comment on the resistance to SLICE first. I felt that Dr. Sheppard's commentary on that was highly irresponsible and very unscientific when he said there was no evidence for it and that he would put it at number 20 on the list of possibilities, or something like that.

Resistance to SLICE has happened elsewhere. It has happened in Chile. It has happened in Norway. It has happened in eastern Canada, and there was a report yesterday that came out of the 2010 sea lice 2010 congress going on here in Victoria that it is highly likely in B.C. In fact, there are some signs in B.C. that the process may have already started. There is certainly no evidence to the contrary, because no one has done experiments, so it's inappropriate to discuss that possibility without studying it first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Kamp is next.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. MacDonald and Dr. Dill. We appreciate the information you've provided so far.

Let me start with Mr. MacDonald and then move on to Dr. Dill.

I think you mentioned, or you certainly gave the impression, that the aquaculture companies were fighting “tooth and nail”--I think those are the words you used--the prospect of going to some kind of closed containment. That's actually not the testimony we've heard in this committee so far; in fact, we've heard some openness to that. We've only heard from Marine Harvest so far, as I recall, but I didn't hear them resisting that idea. In fact, I understand they are also working with one of the groups that we're going to hear from in a subsequent hour here. I thought it might be important to say that for the record.

In terms of sablefish farming, did you say there are a few operations now?

[Ron MacDonald]

Yes.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Where are they located in relation to where the wild fishing is taking place?

[Ron MacDonald]

I can give you a list of locations. It's on my phone. I will give it to you before the end of the hearing.

They are close to the inlets, and the inlets are where our juveniles are. We leave them alone so that they can grow big, get sexually mature, and go out and spawn. As they go out into the deep, over the edge, there could be an interception.

Our biggest concern isn't with the three operations, but with the fact that there could be 47 more of them. If you look at the proliferation of the open-pen salmon farms over the years, there is a possibility that the same thing could happen here.

With respect to your first comment, I hope the testimony you heard that they want to move towards it was correct. Closed containment has been an option for years to these companies as this debate raged on. Every comment I've read from them about closed containment is that it's not economical to do, number one, and that there's no reason to do it, number two, so if they don't believe the current practices are having an impact, then why would they put money into changing their location?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

In fairness, I think they understand the concept of a social licence as well as all the other factors. I'm not saying they're committed to moving towards that, but I think my comment was that I don't think they're fighting it tooth and nail.

Is it important, though, that the farms be in the same vicinity as the wild sablefish?

[Ron MacDonald]

No, I don't think so. We don't get a lot of information from the farms. We don't know where they file their information. We would like a registry. We asked for a registry from the provincial government.

What I will tell you, Mr. Kamp, is the fish doesn't look the same. The fish is not as dense. The oil content doesn't seem to be as high. It's a very tasty fish, but it doesn't taste like wild sablefish.

One of the major concerns we have as we try to be an example and move from a volume fishery of 4,900 tonnes down to a sustainable 2,400 is that we are doing it by going out and promoting our good practices. We're going out and promoting it by way of flavour, taste, and desirability by chefs. If you've got a product that comes in and has the same name but effectively is not the same fish, it's going to have a significant market impact. We are the success story for fisheries on both coasts with respect to sustainability and leading on value-added increase in pricing.

I want to underline again that 90% our market is offshore, so we are an export industry. We're bringing in dollars that otherwise would not be brought in.

I am not anti-aquaculture, and if you do go back, Mr. Chairman, you will find that I've actually written a report while I was sitting in your chair that supported aquaculture development. We just want everybody to take a deep breath, look at the evidence, and take the precautionary approach. I don't understand why the department—and it's not just under your government; it was the same under previous governments—just doesn't look and say this doesn't smell right. If we can't prove it doesn't have an impact, let's slow it down and gather the information before we make decisions.

I think it's one of the reasons that the Prime Minister has announced this inquiry: it's because we need to get the information sorted out, we need good scientists such as Dr. Dill and others to put their theses forward, and we need to make some decision to save these wild stocks.

I don't want my stock to go the way of the Fraser River sockeye.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

It becomes fairly clear from your website that you're opposed to, or certainly cautious about, the growing sablefish farming industry. How much is based on science and the possible effects on wild fish, and how much is based on the market, as you've mentioned, either because of the price going down as a result of increased supply or the lower quality affecting the price you might get?

[Ron MacDonald]

The number one concern is on the biology and the health of the wild species, but we'd be disingenuous if we said we didn't think it would have an impact on the economy of the fishery, because it will.

We have 2,400 tonnes now, sustainably harvested, sought after in every five-star restaurant and any market that we've tried to penetrate, and they reward our good practices with $8 a pound. If you go in with an inferior quality product, which we believe farmed fish will be, and they try to capture the same price in the marketplace, you know what will happen: the price will go down.

However, I will tell you something. This argument that it's really all about price has come from some people, but our own members have indicated that they would be prepared to invest in closed containment.

We don't have any licences. I'm talking about our own members. My members are entrepreneurs. This is a commercial fishery on the Pacific coast, and if there is a way they can at the same time protect the requirement for protecting the wild stocks and find a business opportunity in closed containment on salmon or on other species, some of my members would probably invest, but you would not have one of them invest one penny in any of the open-pen operations in B.C. today.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay. Thank you for your testimony.

Let me turn quickly to Dr. Dill.

I'm not sure where to start, but let me ask this question: are there any credible scientists, in your opinion, who disagree with you on aquaculture in terms of the interaction of wild and farmed salmon?

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

There are some people with DFO who would disagree in part. I don't think they would disagree with where the lice are coming from. They wouldn't disagree with the impact that has on individual juveniles. They might disagree on the population consequences of that.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

They reach a different conclusion than you. Does that make them not credible?

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

No. I think I made it clear earlier that reasonable people can have disagreements about the way they interpret evidence. I can only tell you that in my opinion, the weight of evidence supports the hypothesis that I put forward.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

I saw you on a video that's available online. In it you said about DFO scientists, and I quote: “They're one of three things: extremely ignorant, misinformed, or they're lying to us.” Is that still your position?

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

I didn't think I made that reference to DFO scientists. I think I made it to DFO managers. I'd have to check that. I remember the statement.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay. Let's leave that one for now.

[Some voices]

Oh! oh!

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

I actually have quite a bit of respect for DFO scientists. I think they're put in a position in which it's very difficult for them to do their jobs, because they have two mandates that do not seem consistent with one another. One is protection of wild fish and the second is support for aquaculture, a position in which they basically find themselves in an almost untenable situation.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

We've heard that position before, and I appreciate that.

With respect to Dr. Martin Krkosek's work, I've actually read pretty much all of what Dr. Harvey would call the thrust and parry and all of the papers flying back and forth there.

Let me ask a couple of questions, and then I'll run out of time. What did you think of his paper, in which he said that by 2010 the pink salmon would be extinct? Clearly, they will not.

Also, when he appeared before us, he didn't seem to be reaching the conclusions that you're reaching. In other words, he said pretty clearly that he's not opposed to aquaculture. He thinks it needs to be managed in an effective way. In fact, I think he was certainly suggesting that it had improved significantly, along the lines of what Dr. Sheppard was saying.

Can you comment on these things, please?

[Dr. Lawrence Dill]

Well, you have to keep in mind that his prediction about the extinction--and I think he meant the commercial extinction of these fish--was based on information at the time he wrote the paper. Since then, there have been changes in the way the farms manage sea lice.

I referred to those earlier as an experiment. They are treating the fish at a different time and in a coordinated way, and that has had a very positive effect. In fact, I know he's rerun those models with current data and he doesn't come to quite as dramatic a conclusion. However, I think what you have to realize is that we now have an industry whose existence and whose impact on wild salmon populations is based on using a chemical for which we are almost certain that resistance will evolve, and when it does, there's nothing left in the toolbox. We're putting ourselves in an extremely vulnerable position.