Thank you.
We carry out research, advocacy, public awareness, and community outreach to confront the threats throughout the salmon's life cycle. We have seven regional councils and 125 affiliated organizations throughout its range in North America.
Our research department has five full-time biologists on staff. We are internationally recognized for our research capabilities, have published many peer-reviewed scientific articles, and are invited to participate in scientific exchanges locally, nationally, and internationally.
Our main research programs are based on the marine survival of wild Atlantic salmon and interactions between Atlantic salmon and escapees from aquaculture stations. We conduct also research on the feasibility of freshwater, land-based, closed containment aquaculture in cooperation with The Conservation Fund's Freshwater lnstitute in West Virginia, and we also promote the benefits of live-release angling in all the Atlantic salmon regions of Canada.
In regard to the value of the wild Atlantic salmon, as Mr. LeBlanc stated a few minutes ago, in 2010 we contracted Gardner Pinfold to conduct a socio-economic study on the value of Atlantic salmon. Given the fact that from 1985 to 2009 DFO's budget decreased 75% relative to inflation, the actual amounts fell from $24 million to $12 million. On the other hand, the Pinfold study indicated that NGOs such as ours and others spent $15 million, plus another $12 million in kind, for salmon conservation activities in 2010.
The study also calculated the value of the recreational fishery itself at $115 million, which as Mr. LeBlanc also indicated earlier creates quite a few jobs in regions that depend on sustainable economic development.
The study entailed sampling of 1,324 anglers and 995 non-users of the resource in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. There was support for investment in the range of $4.50 to $12.50 per tax-paying household from 80% of the non-users. These are people who don't even fish. The support was conditional, though, on demonstrating progress in restoration and was based on economic, intrinsic, and ecological values.
The $12 million budget for DFO is far below the annual value of $105 million perceived by the Canadian public. When salmon populations are restored, the value of wild Atlantic salmon could very well surpass the 2010 value.
In regard to the state of our populations right now, we recently received the 2014 ICES report, which confirmed what we already knew about how terrible the runs were last year. The total estimate for two-sea-winter spawners in North America for 2014 decreased 13% from 2013 and did not meet the total two-sea-winter minimum conservation limits for North America. North American returns were near record lows for Quebec, the regions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Scotia-Fundy, and the U.S.A. ln fact, only 30% of the 60 assessed rivers—that's 18 rivers out of 60—met their minimum conservation limits last year.
To put this into perspective, a minimum conservation limit is a threshold gauged after harvests by anglers and first nations have taken place and below which biologists warn that salmon should not fall. ln order to achieve a sustainable salmon run, the number of spawning salmon must consistently stay above the minimum conservation limits. The Miramichi, for example, which has historically produced 20% of North American Atlantic salmon, last year only reached 69% of its minimum spawning requirements on the southwest and only 21% on the northwest.
At the very least, there should be no harvest of salmon from populations that are not surpassing their minimum conservation limits.
In regard to issues related to the management of the resource, Canada monitors fewer than 10% of its Atlantic salmon rivers, a level that is insufficient to make effective management decisions.
Allocations to all fisheries must be based on the health of individual salmon populations and their ability to sustain an individual river's salmon run in perpetuity. Progress has been made in reducing the number of retention licences in the recreational fishery, but DFO and Quebec still issue retention licences to angle salmon populations not meeting minimum conservation limits.
An issue related to management is the reporting. The overall harvest in Canada last year was 105 tonnes, made up of 51 tonnes from the recreational fishery, 53 tonnes from the aboriginal fishery, and 1.6 tonnes of the bycatch from the Labrador resident trout fishery. The harvest was reduced compared to 2013, when it was 135 tonnes.
The Listuguj Salmon Summit in 2014, which I attended, provided material that indicated that the harvest in the Atlantic salmon fisheries on the Restigouche has been underestimated. It provided recommendations for improvements in reporting harvest that included the need for mandatory reporting and survey returns and a system that links reporting with licence purchase.
A recommendation we put forward recently would be to improve reporting of catches in aboriginal and angler harvests by disallowing the reissuing of tags or licences to individuals who failed to report their harvests from the previous year. This is something that is being tried to be implemented for the Greenland fishery, which I'll touch on in a second.
Enforcement is another important issue in regard to management. Our unreported catch in 2013 was 24 tonnes, which is most likely underestimated. Our recommendation is that there be an increase in surveillance, protection, and enforcement to control illegal harvest of salmon in rivers, estuaries, and along our coasts.
The wild Atlantic salmon conservation policy, which became a policy of the government in 2009, is a blueprint for the conservation of Atlantic salmon. The only problem is that it's never been funded, so consequently it cannot be put into effect.
We are recommending that an independent review of progress in achieving the goals of the Canadian wild Atlantic salmon conservation policy be developed, that an action plan identify the priorities for implementation, that timelines be carried out, and that it be funded.
In regard to research, in the marine environment, based on the ICES advice to NASCO, the continued low abundance of salmon stock across North America—despite significant fisheries reduction and generally sustained smolt production from the limited number of monitored rivers—strengthens the conclusions that factors acting on survival in the first and second years at sea are constricting the abundance of Atlantic salmon.
We therefore recommend there be an increase in resources, staff, and funding for research on low marine survival rates of Atlantic salmon to provide a more meaningful contribution by Canada to ICES, to NASCO's Salmon Research Board, and to other marine mortality research programs that are going on, such as ASF's tracking program.
Lastly, in regard to Greenland and St-Pierre and Miquelon, the Greenland government has become very aggressive in its harvesting of salmon, especially since 2012 when it instituted a fishery. From 2002 to 2011, the harvest at Greenland stayed below 20 tonnes, which was for personal consumption. That changed in 2012 when the Greenland government announced that it was fed up with watching NASCO parties, such as Canada, carry out a huge retention fishery.
In recent years the Greenland fishery harvests have been consistently made up of 80% to 95% of North American salmon, most of them obviously Canadian. The total reported salmon harvest at Greenland rose to 34 tonnes in 2012, to 47 tonnes in 2013, and to 58 tonnes in 2014, along with an estimated unreported catch of 10 tonnes. A NASCO monitoring and control group working with Greenland ascertained the unreported catch is likely very underestimated.
The commercial fishery is conducted by about 320 professional fishermen who apply for a free licence each year, which permits them to fish with 70-metre gill nets, 20 at a time. In 2013 only 66 out of the 320 reported their catches.
Our recommendations are that we strengthen Canadian influence and diplomacy to reduce and control the harvest of Canadian salmon in Greenland; to improve management of Canadian salmon fisheries to show leadership to Greenland; to work aggressively with Greenland both bilaterally and through NASCO; to limit the Greenland fishery to no more than 20 tonnes for personnel consumption; and to work aggressively, both bilaterally and through NASCO, toward effective monitoring and control of Greenland's salmon fisheries.
Finally, with the question of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, this fishery harvests mixed stocks of salmon primarily of Canadian origin. The harvest in this fishery reached 5.3 tonnes in 2013, the largest since reporting began in 1970. It consisted of 588 large salmon and 1,764 grilse. The preliminary genetic research shows that 37% of these fish originated from the Gaspé region of Quebec; 34% from Newfoundland; 22% from the Maritimes, including the Miramichi; and 7% from the Quebec upper north shore. France, with respect to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, has consistently refused to join NASCO. France's membership in NASCO would allow a more robust discussion and planning to control this fishery. On that, we recommend that we work aggressively bilaterally with France to join NASCO as a party with respect to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and/or control this fishery through agreements between Canada and France directly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
