Thank you.
First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Bruce Tufts. I am a professor at Queen's University. I'm a researcher. I teach fisheries biology, and my research area is fisheries biology. One of my areas of expertise is recreational angling. I've been at Queen's for over 25 years. During my entire career I've worked on different aspects of recreational angling and many of the conservation issues associated with that. I have recently written a major review paper in this area. So that's my background.
I have two important things that I would like to talk about today. The first one is something that points out the difference between commercial fisheries and recreational fisheries. One of the big differences between recreational fisheries and commercial fisheries is that the fish are caught individually. This means that anglers get an opportunity to select the fish that they're going to keep and they get an opportunity to select the fish they're going to put back. These days more anglers are putting back fish and releasing them alive than they are keeping them. While this may seem like a small difference, it's actually tremendously important, because it provides a foundation for sustainability. I think the biggest difference that I see between commercial fisheries and recreational fisheries is that, because of this process called selective harvest and live release of fish, recreational fisheries have the potential to be entirely sustainable, and many recreational fisheries these days are sustainable, which is in stark contrast to many of the commercial fisheries around the world.
This is the first thing I wanted to point out. I think it's extremely important. It speaks to the future of recreational fisheries in Canada and their potential.
The second thing that I wanted to talk about is a major review paper that I've written in the last year that talks about the economic impacts, conservation impacts, and social importance of recreational fishing.
Mike Melnik has talked about the economic value of recreational fishing in Canada, but one of the things I would like to point out as a scientist is that there's also tremendous potential to improve the economic value of recreational fishing in Canada. It's a sustainable activity. Whether we're looking at the east coast, looking at Atlantic salmon; at central Canada, looking at walleye fisheries and other inland fisheries; or other coastal fisheries, the steelhead fisheries on the west coast, all of these fisheries have issues that could be improved upon. There are numbers out there, such as those produced recently for Atlantic salmon, that show that, if the fishery was brought back to the peak levels of several decades ago, we could actually increase the economic value of those fisheries by, in the case of Atlantic salmon, 50%. So a value like $128 million, which is the value of the Atlantic salmon fishery, could be increased to almost $200 million by improving the fishery.
If we're looking across Canada, we see other situations, many of them where we could improve the economic value of the recreational fishery. In inland Canada we still have commercial fisheries for species such as walleye. It's been shown that in every instance, when you compare the numbers for the value of fish to the commercial fishery, you end up with less than a dollar a pound or a few dollars a pound. When you look at the value of those fish from an economic standpoint to the recreational fishery in the Canadian economy, the values are more like a hundred dollars or several hundred dollars a pound for those fish. The numbers are staggering. There are orders of magnitude differences between the value of a fish towards the recreational fishery versus the commercial fishery.
If we go to the west coast, there are also examples where, because of fishing practices, we have unselective harvest or unselective bycatch of species like steelhead. In other salmon fisheries, steelhead are an unintentional bycatch and are killed when they could have tremendous economic value if they were left in the recreational fishery.
I'm not going to get into any more examples, but all across the country, if we dig and look in detail, we see examples of where we could raise the economic value of recreational fisheries, and they are also a sustainable activity—very important thoughts for the future.
Another thing I want to point out is that in our recent review paper we looked at the conservation impact of anglers and the fact that, in many ways, anglers' dollars and anglers' time support science and conservation efforts for fisheries across the country. They're not just benefiting sport fish, they're benefiting habitat and ecosystems, which has benefits for non-sport fish species as well. Anglers become the main drivers of the conservation efforts that affect all of our aquatic ecosystems. That's one important point.
Another important point is that anglers' dollars, and in many cases efforts through logistical support, drive a lot of the science on aquatic species and aquatic ecosystems. We looked at the number of publications on sport fish and aquatic ecosystems versus those on non-sport fish. The numbers are hundreds and thousands of times higher for studies on sport fish. In many cases the dollars from those studies come from anglers' licence fees, they come from anglers' contributions to non-government organizations, and those studies are supported by volunteer time of anglers. That's a huge impact on science.
The last thing I want to talk about is the social benefit. In scientific circles these days, and in the scientific literature, there's something called nature deficit disorder. As we become more urbanized as a planet, and as a country, many people become so disconnected from nature that it's been described now as a disorder. As Mike Melnik pointed out—and we talked about this in our paper—the enjoyment that youth have going out learning what it is to catch a fish not only takes them away from their computers and their other electronic devices at that time; it also then provides a connection with aquatic resources and with nature that will be very important in the future. If we're going to look after aquatic environments, it's anglers and the young stewards who are coming along who will be the ones to put up money and effort, and to make sure those aquatic resources are defended.
That's the end of my talk for today.