That's a great question. Thank you.
I've actually been involved in that research area for almost my entire career. I was on the east coast of Canada working at Dalhousie University when mandatory catch and release came into play for Atlantic salmon. There was a lot of debate and controversy about that. My research ended up looking at the survival of Atlantic salmon after catch and release, and whether there were any instances where that could be improved upon.
Over the years I have done many, many different studies on different species to look at the impacts of live release and whether there's any mortality associated with that. I can say that without doubt from all these studies the vast majority of all of those fish survive.
We just looked in the laboratory the other day at a bass we collected that had been in the bass fishery in Lake Ontario for 18 years. It was 18 years old. Bass is a really important target species for recreational anglers, and the fact that there are 17- and 18-year-old fish swimming out there tells you those fish are being caught and released, and surviving. We've done tagging studies on fish that have been caught and released and virtually all of those fish survived.
In the few areas where there have been issues, where there's been a problem with live release, my research has actually helped anglers understand important things like keeping fish in the water if they're releasing them and the significance of water temperature for live-release situations. One of the great things about the recreational angling industry is that it's well received. This information has been put into practice and anglers are very conscientious about making sure that the fish they release are in very good condition.