Fisheries Committee on April 25th, 2012

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

We need rapid identification, then risk assessment to decide what threat it poses, once we know what it is. The difficulty is in knowing what it is. I'm assuming your question was partly prompted by the fact that I said there are species in the Great Lakes and we're not even sure whether they're invasive or not. We have expertise in this country, not as much as I'd like to see, but expertise to identify various kinds of species of organisms, whether it's fish or invertebrates, and so on. We have no coordinated way of accessing this expertise quickly when a new threat is found. Usually what happens is that someone will make a phone call saying they found something strange, so it's very haphazard. Then somebody says maybe you should send it to Dr. Whoever in this university, and it may get to them. Then they'll identify it, saying this is a potential problem, maybe we should talk to somebody about this.

It's very haphazard, as opposed to let's say the situation in Australia, where there is monitoring and more of a coordinated system for rapid identification, rapid assessment, and then rapid response.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Dr. Johnson.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

I just want to add something.

In my view, the practicality of the process is fine. But what is crucial is to take steps at a political level. No one will do what they are supposed to do if there is no coordination between the federal and provincial governments, including municipalities and the people who live there. It is very important to have everything planned, even if you miss the arrival of some species that might have not been identified properly, for example. I think it is important to have everything ready and to be able to react. A good identification system is not worth much if you are not able to react.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Johnson, I didn't hear any Spanish creep in there. That was well done.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

Muy, muy importante.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

I can't do either. You're way ahead of me.

I was going to ask either one of you gentlemen if you're aware of the federal legislation called WAPPRIITA, the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

No.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

History is dragging me back.

I looked it up, and we have a federal body of legislation right now that, among other things, is designed to protect Canadian species whose capture, possession, and transportation are regulated by provincial or territorial laws, whose introduction into Canadian ecosystems could endanger species. The act forbids the import, export, and interprovincial transportation of these species unless the specimens are accompanied by appropriate documents and applies to plants, animals, alive or dead, as well as to their parts and any derived products. Then you go to the act itself, and the definition of animal includes fish.

I asked DFO the same question, and they didn't seem to know what pre-existed, so obviously there's some work we need to do in building that body of the legislation.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

What date is that?

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

It was enacted several years ago.

I can tell you that when I was a conservation officer in the Yukon Territory we were enforcing that legislation in 1998 or 1999.

Both of you went “huh”, so I guess that tells us we probably should look at that body of legislation again to rehash that, maybe even as a committee to see how it lines up in provincial and international trade.

I hear you. It was the same message we got from DFO, which was customs was largely acting on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and provincial legislation to prevent carp from coming in, but it would seem to me that they'd be well within their jurisdiction, binding on Her Majesty. This body of legislation would require them to do that at customs under that federal body of legislation.

I guess we have to dig into it and see what we can do or see what it says.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

If I could add, I think that's the enforcement aspect I was referring to. I think the regulation structure is fine, but I know there has to be a mechanism of enforcement, so I'm not sure. Obviously, diffusing that information to the appropriate.... But you said you applied that yourself in certain cases?

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Yes.

When I was a conservation officer in the Yukon we used WAPPRIITA more for terrestrial stuff, of course. We're dealing with CITES animals and those sorts of things where they cross provincial boundaries or where they come in and out of the territory from Alaska, which we border on four points of entry. So we didn't have a lot of people trying to live-release fish or aquatic invasive species, necessarily, in the Yukon. You've got to be pretty hardy to live in the Yukon. P.E.I. is easy enough.

I was interested to hear if you'd heard of that and if you had comments on its effectiveness or not, but we don't need to worry about that.

The question I have now is fairly scientific and maybe out of curiosity.

I appreciate your point on early detection and timing, but do we know enough about some of the aquatic invasive species to find periods of vulnerability in their life cycle where it would be most appropriate or timely to target an eradication strategy, and has that been deployed?

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

You've already heard a lot about the sea lamprey, I imagine.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Yes.

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

If I recall correctly, it's targeting the larval stages that live in the sediments. So there's an example where the lampricide is applied with that specific life stage in mind.

Normally, we don't look at it that way. Where eradication has been applied in other parts of the world, there's been an attempt to do it before the species has time to disperse rapidly. If it does disperse rapidly, then you're always going to be putting out fires. Also, you have to consider prioritization of species for eradication—in other words, those species most likely to be eradicated—rather than wasting your effort. Species have been identified as priorities for eradication when it's been understood that they can't disperse very quickly, such as certain snails or parasites of these snails. There have been examples on abalone farms of successful eradication of a parasite because it was understood that this thing was a crawling invertebrate, and that therefore it couldn't get very far. So they had time and were likely to be successful if they invested the effort in doing it.

So in that sense, once the invasion has proceeded, once you have a population there, you can make decisions based on its life history, perhaps even specific to certain life stages. You can decide whether it is worth the effort to attempt an eradication, with some potential collateral damage to the rest of the community, or whether it is just going to be a completely controlled operation from now on. These stages where you make the judgments as to prevention, eradication, or chronic control usually depend on how far the species has progressed in its population buildup, which is a function of time.

[Dr. Ladd Johnson]

I would just like to add briefly that I think the lamprey example is sort of a false hope, in some sense. I don't want people to always think there will be that kind of solution. It's a wonderful case story, where the biology really mattered and we were able to sleuth it out.

On the other hand, I'd like to say there are promising things, especially with certain molecular approaches, and I think in the future we'll be able to use instruments that are less blunt, in terms of doing this. I think of the blackfly control program using Bti, a type of bacterial pathogen for the fly, and targeting the larval stage in the water rather than the adult. So that's an example of how you can target certain things with not exactly a magic bullet, but something much more precise than the chemical treatments that would often be used in normal cases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

What European countries are fighting invasive species most effectively, and what are they doing?

Also, is the Government of Canada or are any universities in the country—and if there are any, I'd like to hear—dealing government to government or university to university, for example, with European countries or Australia and New Zealand, which you've mentioned here as being quite successful in fighting invasive species? I'd just like you to comment on that.

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

I'm not familiar with how efficient European countries are in dealing with this problem. I mentioned Australia and New Zealand. I can mention South Africa and to some extent the United States—the United States I'm not certain of, but certainly the other three countries—as being ahead of us and talk about how seriously they take this issue, in terms of risk assessment, and a—I don't like using this word, because it's overused—proactive approach to dealing with the problem. If you talk to them, they'll probably say they're nowhere near as successful as they want to be. I'm just talking about our position relative to where they are. I can't talk about European countries, because I haven't spoken to anybody in their governments.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Well, Doctor, are you telling me, then, that we're working by ourselves and we're not dealing with other countries in fighting invasive species? Generally, we like to deal with other countries, and universities deal with other countries. But basically we're doing it ourselves here?

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

The sea lamprey example, which was the reason for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission being born, is an example of the great cooperation between the United States and Canada. We recognize that invasive species is yet another transboundary issue, because they don't recognize boundaries, so we're not working just with ourselves. There are differences between the two nations. They have an invasive species act, and we don't. There's probably a difference in commitment of funds as well.

But as far as us working with Europe, I don't know of a situation in which we're working with Europe on a federal level, or even a provincial level. Through universities, we do. We have collaborations with colleagues from overseas who are dealing with invaders before we get them, or sometimes the same ones that have happened to invade both sides of the Atlantic. We share information for the purpose of combining our efforts to understand what these species are doing. So at the university level--that is, at the scientific level--definitely there is an attempt to embrace collaboration with people from other parts of the planet who have different expertise or where they're seeing invasions that we haven't yet.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So we are in fact dealing with other universities around the world. Of course, I am aware that fish do not know where borders are, but I think it's so important that we do not reinvent the wheel, no matter what we're doing. You're telling me that we do deal with other universities around the world and with other governments.

[Dr. Anthony Ricciardi]

Scientific researchers deal with other universities—absolutely.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.