I have two points.
One is that we know from some published studies and from research we've been conducting the last three years in Miramichi that some smolts are found in striped bass stomachs. We've done diet studies, we've looked at predation studies, and that work is being analyzed as we speak. It's not 48% of striped bass that have smolts in Miramichi; it's much less. We have some information presented in the recent reports we have on that.
Striped bass and Atlantic salmon co-evolved in Miramichi. After the ice age, after the glaciers retreated, those two species populated the rivers and they've been there together for thousands of years. So the idea that somehow one suddenly becomes a threat to the other is difficult for me to understand.
The second is that striped bass in the Miramichi cannot explain the decline of Atlantic salmon overall in eastern Canada, in Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec. The striped bass in Miramichi may have a consequence on the Miramichi salmon but to say that it's behind the decline of the Atlantic salmon in eastern Canada doesn't fit.