No, it's not, no.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farms.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farms.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Veterinarian, Aquatic Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Government of British Columbia
No, it's not, no.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Okay.
I have a question for you about sea lice. We talked specifically about Pacific salmon and Atlantic salmon. I would imagine that steelhead and any other salmonid would be a potential host for sea lice. We don't talk about any of the other fish in the Pacific Ocean as potential hosts for sea lice. Are there any other species or families of fish that would involve sea lice in their life cycle?
5:05 p.m.
Veterinarian, Aquatic Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Government of British Columbia
Yes, there are. The Atlantic salmon are susceptible to sea lice, as are rainbow trout, as are steelhead, for example, in the ocean. Steelhead, for example, will lose their lice as they go back to the estuary and up the rivers, because lice just don't like non-sea water. So they might get lice when they're out in the ocean, but they lose them by the time they get back in the rivers.
There are two types of lice, mainly. For the purposes of this discussion, there are salmon lice and there are herring lice, many different species of each, but the salmon lice occur on all of the five species of Pacific salmon as well as the Atlantic salmon that are farmed.
We have monitored chinook salmon that are farmed, and they have few to zero lice on them to the point where it's not even worth making the effort to try to count them, so we don't monitor the chinook lice.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I have one quick question, Dr. Sheppard, if I may, and it's an important question.
In any of the research, has anyone modelled the possibility of a smolt or fry navigating from, say, the mouth of the Fraser River? If you take a look at all of the islands, all of the channels, and you say that the farms are spaced far apart, sometimes 3 kilometres, sometimes 50 kilometres, I think the relevant question is can a fry emerging from the Fraser River navigate to the wintering and the growing grounds? And has anybody modelled the chances of success of that fry going through any channel or any passage between the islands that doesn't contain a fish farm? What would the probability of that be?
5:10 p.m.
Veterinarian, Aquatic Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Government of British Columbia
I do not know of anybody who has modelled that. It's probably a good question for somebody like Brian Riddell or a DFO scientist.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would just like to apologize to Mr. Sheppard. I was present, but I was preoccupied at times. Unfortunately, as you know, our attention is also taken up by other issues, including the snow crab crisis in my region in Atlantic Canada. I am currently involved in that issue and that is why I was unable to participate fully in the committee proceedings. For that I apologize. It was not because I was not interested in your testimony or in the subject matter. Thank you.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Blais.
Dr. Sheppard, on behalf of the committee I want to thank you very much for taking time out of your schedule to travel here to Ottawa to meet with our committee. We really appreciate your time and the information you've shared with this committee here today.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.